Last night I was forced with a dilemma: there was a bag of thawed boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my fridge that had to be used! Four is a lot for two people, so I wanted to keep the breasts intact in order to save the extra for lunches. Moi, thrifty? Yes. Leftover snobs need not apply.

So I tried to do this recipe for Artichoke and Sun-dried Tomato Chicken, but quickly realized I only had two sun-dried tomatoes left and no pesto makings. So I put on my thinking cap and made do. The results at first were TOO SPICY (and that's hard to do in my house, since we both love spicy curries and salsas!) I ended up fishing out all the canned chipotle peppers I had added, and the sauce was still too hot. So I added 2 tbsp of brown sugar and about 3/4 cup of 10% cream and turned it into a cream based sauce, which made it very palatable. Served over linguine. Yum!

Elli's Spicy (Chicken) Breasts

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 lb linguine
1/4 cup sliced black olives
3/4 cup chopped marinated artichokes
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/4 orange or yellow or red  bell pepper
3/4 cup 10% cream
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 thin slice canned chipotle pepper (optional)
6 sun-dried tomatoes
panko bread crumbs
1 egg
2tbsp milk
Parmesan cheese
coarse salt, pepper, dried basil, dried thyme

1. In a pan heat olive oil on medium heat with 1 smushed clove of garlic
2. Beat the egg and milk together lightly in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the bread crumbs with some salt and pepper.
3. Dredge the chicken breasts through the milky egg, then the crumbs to coat. Add to pan and brown on both sides, about 4 minutes a side. Remove from pan to plate and cover with tinfoil.
4. Add onion, pepper, and other smushed clove of garlic to pan. Saute until onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Add sun-dried tomatoes. Remove smushed garlics.
5. Turn pan down to medium low. Add canned tomatoes, olives, artichokes, chipotle pepper. Stir well. Stir in red wine to taste.
6. Add chicken back to pan and cover with mixture. Turn pan down to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
7. Cook linguine 8 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain and add a dash of olive oil to lubricate. Cover!
8. Taste chicken mixture. If too spicy, you can fish out your chipotle pepper. Test to make sure chicken is done with a meat thermometer. Remove chicken back to the plate and tinfoil. I keep mine in the toaster oven on "keep warm" setting! Nobody likes a cold dinner!
9. Stir in sugar bit by bit to taste if tomatoes are too spicy or acidic.
10. Stir in cream.
11. Serve chicken over nest of linguine, covered in tomato mixture! Yum!