Chicken Provencal

Last night was my first attempt at cooking chicken. Ever. It was scary to touch and slice chicken breasts for the first time. It was gross, actually, to handle real animal flesh. It was totally freaking me out. But I soldiered on, and the end result was pretty good:

I definitely overcooked the chicken in the broiler (I was being cautious, it being my first time cooking chicken), but it still tasted good. I didn't realize how fast food cooks and browns in the broiler! I've never used the broiler before, and now that I've discovered it I plan on using it more. It's fun! The dish called for half a cup of red wine, so I picked up a bottle of Mas de Libian from Smith & Vine...for cooking and drinking! Good stuff - I'd buy it again.

The recipe is from...you guessed it...The Schwarzbein Principle. I see no reason you couldn't substitute the chicken for tofu or seitan. You simply sautee an onion and a pepper with some garlic for 5 minutes, then add a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes, half a cup of red wine, 1 Tablespoon Herbes de Provence, 2 teaspoons dried thyme, and ground pepper to taste. Cook it for around 30-40 minutes, then add your meat or meat substitute and garnish with fresh minced parsley. The chicken marinated in 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, 1 Tablespoon lemon juice and black pepper for one hour.

The most amazing thing about this meal was that I did not crave sweets afterward! I always crave something sweet after a meal, probably because my meals are usually high carb, which causes a rush of serotonin then a subsequent "carb crash" which triggers the craving for sweets to bring that serotonin rush back (Chap 4: The Low Serotonin State). So, I think this meal was balanced enough to not cause the serotonin rush or the subsequent sweets craving. Cool! They would probably not advise having wine with dinner because it is a stimulant and stimulants do all kinds of bad things to your body, but whatever. I enjoy it! And if I deny myself a glass of wine or two with dinner when I want it, I'll just overindulge later on, which is definitely bad. Which is why I also had two squares of delicious dark chocolate (which is a SuperFood, but that's another book!)