Italian Chicken

Food is one of the easiest things to make on Pinterest. Especially because everybody needs to eat - so it doesn't actually take extra time out of my day to make it (since I'd be making something anyway)...it just takes extra gumption and a little bit of a daring mood to try something new. It's one of the reasons I'm writing this blog: to challenge myself daily to try something new. Last night was no exception. I made a new dish for dinner.

This recipe comes from http://aaronandjillw.blogspot.com/2011/08/italian-chicken.html and here are a couple of things you may want to know:

In the recipe, their blog says to cook the chicken until it's "almost done," and they do get asked for clarification in the comments, which they give (I have taken it upon myself to read the comments so you won't have to, unless you really want to): roughly about 40 minutes, give or take.

The recipe does not call for zucchini, but, again, someone in the comments said they were going to try that instead of the artichoke, and I love zucchini so I thought I'd just add that in along with the artichoke (a favorite of my husband's).

The blogger says they used artichoke hearts that were not marinated. The artichoke we had was marinated, and I believe it gave it a stronger artichoke flavor, which I'm not crazy about, so I'd just stick with them on that one and get yourself a jar or can of unmarinated artichoke hearts.

This is before adding the sugar and flour...it looks completely delicious already!

You can follow the recipe pretty much to the "t" and you will probably be pleased with it. The end result was something that looked pretty tasty as you can see, but it doesn't look anything like the dish aaronandjillw made. But, still tasty.

We made some pasta to to go with this dish and BAM we had a whole meal. My husband and I were not crazy about this dish and we were both trying to figure out what it was that we didn't like and we decided it was probably the cheese...it gave off a different consistency than what we liked. I generally like cheese in my food, but the consistency wasn't quite right. I think because there was plenty of liquid in the bottom of the dish from the tomatoes and the chicken, it made the cheese taste a little more...gooey? I'm not real sure. Either way, I may try to make this again, but I doubt I would put more than a sprinkling of cheese on it. 

So for now, I would not call this recipe a fail...but I would call it a "not quite perfected" dish. Maybe you should try it and let me know if you like it and what changes you made. The chicken and veggies in it were terrific, that much is for sure!

Trying a new recipe again tonight! Here's hoping for success...