Garlicky Basil Chicken

Sometimes when life is hard — and it does get that way sometimes — it’s important to still take care of yourself. Right now, my Mom’s in critical condition in the hospital and we’ve been having to grab food here and there. Yesterday I decided it was important to cook something at home and just get lost for a few minutes in preparing a small, easy – and nutritious meal. It was a little retreat for us. This literally took me about 20 minutes, but it tasted like something that took a couple hours. One of the things that made it so easy is something I think is the best thing in the world – individually frozen chicken breasts. Especially the tenderloin pieces. Anyway, if you need a quick escape and an absolutely flavorful, nutritious mini meal, try this.

• In a small to medium pan, heat olive oil on medium heat. Place about 6 chicken breast pieces in the olive oil.
• Throw in the cracked garlic cloves, salt and pepper and let heat up for a few minutes.
• Cover so that the chicken breast heats all the way through, causing the chicken to both defrost and begin to carmelize.
• Once you see one side start to brown, turn and add the basil and return the cover to finish cooking. Add more basil if you like. I like a lot of basil and garlic so that I can top the breast with it.
• Toward the end of cooking – around fifteen twenty minutes – you’ll see that the juices start to absorb.
• Add wine or water to loosen all the great flavors.
• Make sure there’s still a gravy at the bottom when you’re done, because after you plate the chicken, you’ll want to pour this with basil and garlic on top of the chicken.

Serving suggestion: The side dish I prepared with this was perfect. Just slice the center of a head of Romaine lettuce in half. Drizzle olive oil, red wine vinegar over the top – sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and parmesan cheese shavings. I took a bit of the “salad” with a bite of the chicken and it was sooooo good.

OK, back to the hospital…. : (