A Quick and Easy Dinner from Cooking Light {Chicken with Provencal Sauce}

I must apologize for the recent "radio silence". I was away for a few days to help my mom after she had surgery. She is doing well so far, thankfully! I hope to have posts up throghout the rest of the week with all of the holiday preparations.

With all of the upcoming holidays, I thought it might be a good idea to get some lighter meals in before the gorging begins. Okay, so I won't exactly gorge myself but rather indulge in some holiday favorites. Which will then make me feel that I need to get myself back to eating healthy and jumping on the treadmill at a much faster pace.

So, in anticipation of the big, wonderful meal we will be sharing with our family that's here in NJ on Thursday, I opted to make something a bit lighter tonight. I wanted something that would be quick and easy to prepare. I remembered a recipe I made awhile back but never got around to sharing here from Cooking Light's Five Star Recipes cookbook. The Chicken with Provencal Sauce is so simple and easy to prepare that you can have your kids help you with it.

I did a few things differently from the way the recipe is written. In order to keep the cooking time to a minimum, I sliced the chicken very thinly. I also allowed the chicken to rewarm in the sauce for about 5 minutes while the pasta finished cooking. I think that allowed the flavors to better penetrate the chicken. The lemon is not overpowering as it can be in some dishes.

Overall dinner was a hit at my dinner table with barely enough leftover for one container to go in my lunch tomorrow. Unfortunately, no picture to go with the recipe tonight. I did take some, but just wasn't happy with how they turned out in the end... so, rather than share something that doesn't look truly appetizing, I'm going to suggest you use your imagination or go see the picture over at Cooking Light! I imagine my photo mojo will be back by tomorrow night, so come on back to see what I have to share.

Chicken with Provencal Sauce

Source: Cooking Light (for printable recipe, click HERE)

Ingredients

4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 teaspoons dried herbes de Provence
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Fresh thyme sprigs (optional)

Directions

Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound to 1/2-inch thickness using a meat mallet or rolling pin. Sprinkle chicken evenly with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add chicken; cook 6 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm.

Add garlic to pan; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add broth and herbes de Provence; bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Cook until broth mixture is reduced to 1/2 cup (about 3 minutes). Remove from heat; add butter and lemon juice, stirring until butter melts. Serve sauce over chicken. Garnish with thyme sprigs, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 chicken breast half and about 2 tablespoons sauce)

CALORIES 248 (30% from fat); FAT 8.2g (sat 1.8g,mono 4.5g,poly 1g); IRON 1.5mg; CHOLESTEROL 101mg; CALCIUM 32mg; CARBOHYDRATE 1g; SODIUM 376mg; PROTEIN 40.2g; FIBER 0.3g

Cooking Light, JANUARY 2005