I am so smart. S-M-R-T.

Cooking for One: Chicken Edition

Since Eric is out of town and I have my aerobics class from 6-7, I usually cook alone on Wednesdays.  Last week, after buying a package of 5 chicken breasts, I fell back on a quick seared chicken with horseradish and mustard crust over a bed of lettuce and baguette.  Easy, simple, fast… but boring after 3 meals in a row.

So tonight, before heading to the grocery store, I took a quick look in my fridge (leftover white wine now not suitable for drinking, chicken, and pantry staples).  I then looked at my starred gReader articles under “left over wine” and found this:  Chicken and Artichokes in Wine Sauce from The Kitchn.  Game on.

The best part was it was easy to halve.  It turned out deliciously, even though Jewel doesn’t carry frozen artichoke hearts, so I went with canned ones.  Next time, I would buy halves instead of quartered hearts, since they fell apart a little too easily (this could also be due to the canned nature of the hearts).  But I definitely will be making this again and experimenting with perfecting it.  It would really be delicious over pasta (which is at Eric’s house… fail).

I didn’t take a picture of it (mine didn’t look as amazing as the picture on The Kitchn, so I’ll refer you to there), but here is the recipe:

Chicken and Artichokes in Wine Sauce

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in bite-sized chunks
1 1/2 cups flour
Salt & pepper to taste
1 package frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
About 2 cups of dry white wine
1/2 a lemon

Preparation:
Melt 1 tbsp. of the butter and 1 tbsp. of the olive oil in a skillet and add the artichokes. Cook until lightly browned. While cooking, dredge the chicken in the flour and sprinkle with salt. Remove the artichokes from the skillet and transfer to a plate. Set aside.

Melt the remaining butter in the skillet along with the remaining olive oil. Saute the chicken pieces in this mixture until golden brown on both sides. Add the artichokes back to the pan and season to taste with salt & pepper. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and let it bubble for a few minutes until nice and thick. Stir well to coat everything with the wine sauce.

Transfer to a plate and squeeze with fresh lemon juice.