Spicy Summer Chicken & A Revelation

Tonight we had something I'll call "Spicy Summer Chicken".  I had some chicken breasts to use up and I was trying to think of something new.  I also wanted to tap into the goodness of the fresh garden veggies. 

Now when I'm alone in the kitchen cooking, my mind is usually going a million miles an hour.  Tonight was no exception.  So I'm cutting up onions the way I always have - I cut them in half, then in quarters, and then slice them right into whatever I'm making.  It makes a slicey dice.  It's just the way I do it for lack of a better way.  So I get to thinking "someday I'm really going to have to learn to chop onions the right way".  And then it hits me...I've always done it like this, it has always worked.  I raised four children doing it this way, also fed countless others goodness knows how many thousands of meals over the years (I'm a feeder).  I'm content, it gets done, what am I thinking???  No, seriously, this was my revelation.  It may seem silly and small, but why do we always second guess ourselves?  Why do we always think someone else has a key or some knowledge or skill that we don't?  Why can't we just be ourselves and be content?

I'm wondering how much of this negativity toward myself I really do carry around.  It's good to examine and improve ourselves, but probably not a good thing to always think we're not quite up to the mark.  So I'm going to try to be more conscious about this in the future. 

I'm not sure if this makes sense to anyone else but me, there it is.

And now a recipe, or as we call it here, a method. 

I know that's not a good picture, but it's the best I could get in a dim room.

At any rate, I cut up the chicken breasts into tenders-like pieces and put them into an oiled baking dish.  Then I made the sauce.

Drizzle some oil in a skillet, then add
chopped onions (we used two medium onions tonight)
chopped garlic (as much as you like of each)
(You could also use peppers, if you wanted them)

Stir over medium heat till the onions just start to soften.

Then I added:

3-4 large fresh tomatoes, cut up (you could use canned)
salt & pepper
whatever you like to make it spicy - I added crushed red pepper, tabasco sauce, cumin
Soy Sauce (we use Bragg's)

Simmer this 5-10 mins, then pour it over the chicken in the pan.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Voila!  It's low fat, it's fresh and taty.  It really was tasty, and the chicken was nice and tender.

On the side, we cooked some zucchini in chopped tomatoes with garlic, oregano, etc.  Yummy!

And then there were mashed potatoes. 

It was really very satisfying, not really expensive, and you could actually do a lot of it before work, if you like, and then have an easy meal to come home to.

Enjoy!