Cooking on autopilot: Chicken with Tomato Rosemary Shallot Pan Sauce

Supper tonight was very much inspired by Pam Anderson's first book, "How to Cook Without a Book". I recently rediscovered her while searching for good granola recipes. What I like about Pam are her very approachable cooking style & writing style; when I read her books, I find myself saying: I can do that! She doesn't call for outlandish ingredients or hair tearing techniques. Another thing to love about Pam is she's not shy about using fat - butter and olive oil.

I bought the chicken breasts I used in this recipe at our local grocery store, owned by the Nilssen family which also runs a meat market in Glenwood City. This means the meat department at the Super Valu is a cut above what you'd usually find at a store of its size and that sometimes they offer chicken that they package themselves rather than getting it from a big processor like Gold'n Plump.

That's how I ended up with two giant chicken breasts for supper tonight. I picked up the smallest package of the no name chicken and it still weighed in a two pounds. I had to double check the label to make sure it was really chicken and not turkey.

The rather more uniform and smaller mass marketed breasts might work even better in this recipe since you'd save then time I spent minutes trimming the tenderloins, etc, but they might not be as succulent.

I'd like to make more meals like this: simple and quick but tasty, but next time, I'll take it a little easier on the fat. Sure smelled and tasted good, though. The sauce ended up being too thin and juicy for a true pan sauce, so call it what you will; I call it delicious.

Chicken with Tomato Rosemary Shallot Pan Sauce:
2 well trimmed breasts
1 shallot
1 beef steak tomato
1/4 cup vermouth
1/2 t finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 T butter
1 T olive oil
scant 1/4 cup of flour

Rice:
1 cup Uncle Ben's Natural Brown Rice
1 T butter
2 cups water

Wax Beans:
1 lb wax beans
1/2 t salt
1 T butter
1/3 cup water

Start the rice: bring water, rice and salt to a boil, set burner to low, cover and cook for 25 minutes.
Trim the beans. Chop the tomato, slice the shallots, flatten the chicken with a potato masher. Salt and pepper the chicken then dredge in flour (put flour in a pie plate).
When the rice is about 12 minutes from being done, start heating the oil and butter for the chicken in non stick skillet on medium heat.
When the rice is about 8 minutes from being done, put the beans, butter, salt and water in a Dutch oven on high. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Uncover and cook until the water cooks off, stirring a couple times.
At the same time as you start the beans, turn the chicken pan up to medium high and place the breasts in the pan. Cook for 4 minutes on one side, flip and cook for another 4 minutes, then move to the serving plates. Turn the heat off the beans and the rice and cover.
Put the shallots and rosemary and vermouth in the pan, deglazing all the yummy brown bits. Reduce by half then add the tomatoes and cook for a minute or two.
Spoon the rice and beans onto the plates. Spoon the sauce onto the chicken and rice. Sit down, say grace and enjoy!