As I mentioned in my bruschetta recipe, I had no idea what I was going to make for my main course for my dinner party. I wandered around the grocery store considering all sorts of things but in the end reached for my staple, chicken breasts. Now, I wish I could have afforded to buy fresh chicken but as it was this dinner party was getting a bit out of control so in went the frozen birds.

This meant I had to defrost. Um, how long is this going to take? The microwave told me 22 minutes. Woah! When I took out the defrosted chicken, miraculously it hadn’t cooked and was perfectly defrosted.

Did I still have any idea what I was going to do with this chicken? Um, let’s add some soy sauce and let it marinate while I deal with some more chopping.

“The Chicken”

What you’ll need:

  • 4 chicken breasts
  • 3 bell peppers (I bought one each in yellow, red and orange)
  • pea sprouts
  • almonds
  • garlic
  • shallots
  • onions
  • leeks

I added a bit of canola oil to the pan to saute my garlic (2-3 cloves), sliced onions (1 onion), shallots (1 shallot) and leeks (1 stalk) mixture. After about a minute or two, I added the bell peppers. You might be wondering why my bell peppers seem to be in some sort of broth. Well, that’s because they were. I was cooking with the same pan I just did my seafood salad. If you know your guests don’t eat seafood, then I highly advise starting with a clean pan but I feel this gave this dish an extra zip.

In another pan, I started toasting some almonds (1/2 cup(. I had a vague notion of what I was doing.

After about 7 minutes, I combined the two into a bowl. I started stirfrying the chicken and when it was nearly done, added in the washed pea sprouts (I bought one package from Trader Joe’s but I would say this is 1/4 of a pound).

How do I know the chicken is done? Well, I didn’t want to give anyone salmonella so I had cut it in pieces. If you’re more confident, leave the breasts intact and it’ll look better on the plate. The chicken cooked in about 7 minutes.

Add the bell peppers and almonds back in to the pan to toss before serving.

Serve with risotto and green beans and squash!