Chicken with Marinated Olives and Roasted Tomatoes

When I made the food plan for the week, I needed a recipe for chicken breasts since I knew I'd use the legs for the Chilaquiles Soft Tacos. Flipping through my latest copy of Cooking Club magazine, I selected this recipe for the boobs.

The marinated olives, well, Rodney's a sucker for olives. The roasted tomatoes, eh. Neither of us are hot-to-trot for whole hot tomatoes, no matter how small, so I knew that part would be iffy.  I plowed ahead.  You never learn if you don't try.  Right?

By the time I got around to making this dish, my fresh sage was pretty washed up and not exactly what I'd call fresh.  It had been sitting in the 'fridge for over a week.  I was able to round up about 1/3 cup of (limp) leaves, but had to use dry, ground sage for the rest.

Chicken with Marinated Olives and Roasted Tomatoes

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves

1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp ground sage
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 c cherry tomatoes
1/3 c fresh sage leaves
1 c marinated pitted ripe or green olives

Heat oven to 400°F. Spray large rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper; sprinkle with dry sage.

Heat large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil; heat until hot.


Cook chicken 3 to 4 minutes or until golden brown on both sides; place on baking sheet, serving-side up.

Look at that -- I left those weird tendony/sinewy things in each breast.  Good thing you can't tell after they've cooked a while.

Meanwhile, toss tomatoes and sage leaves with remaining 1 teaspoon oil in medium bowl.

I started with 1 pint of tomatoes since we're not fans of hot tomatoes.  After thinking about it, I figured "what the hell" and added in a second pint.  We might just like it.  If I didn't do that and it turned out the sage was overpowering the single pint of tomatoes, I'd be kicking myself!

Arrange tomatoes around chicken. Nestle olives in tomatoes around chicken.

Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in center.

Serve with olives and tomatoes.

This recipe was simple.  Really simple.  A plug and play, minor-medium interaction sort of recipe with quick turn-around time.  I did wonder why the olives had to be separate from the tomatoes.  As I added them, I thought it'd be just as easy to toss the tomatoes, olives, sage and oil in a bigger bowl rather than dirtying two.

Unfortunately, this recipe cemented the fact that Rodney and I can't stand whole hot tomatoes.  They are just gross.  Two cups of grape tomatoes down the tubes (rather, into worm gullets).  The olives were ok.  Nothing fantastic and really, I couldn't tell much difference between before-and-after cooking olives.  The sage leaves, the poor sage leaves...neither of us even tried them, the soggy, wilted things.  

The chicken, while delightful to look at and even more important, extremely juicy, was fairly bland.  It could be that I should've used more sage or used fresh sage to season.  I dunno.  Certainly not gross, but definitely not a flavor explosion, this chicken. The chicken would probably be a good one for toddlers as you'd just cut it into bits.

Cost:

• chicken breasts: $4.20
• tomatoes: $3.88
• sage: $1.29

Total: $9.37 or $2.34 per each of four servings.

Will I make this one again?  Nope.  There are too many other recipes out there to try with the potential of being better and a limited number of recipes I've tried and, as it turns out, prefer. One that comes straight to mind is Stuffed Chicken Caprese.  Why didn't I think of that when I was making my food plan?  I LOVE that chicken!   

   

We had our chicken breasts with Herbed Red Potatoes (recipe coming next).