We have been on vacation for the past two weeks and just arrived home last night.  It was a beautiful two weeks with only 1 1/2 days of rain and temperatures in my favorite area of 70 to 75 degrees just about every day.  Sunshine was plentiful and I felt amazing.

This is what we returned to.  Ick.  It is supposed to be extremely cold for the next month.  I plan on hibernating the entire time.  Neither my daughter nor I wanted to return home from Florida.  If I could have stayed another two weeks I would have.  The sunshine and being outdoors just felt so rejuvenating.  I finally felt alive again.

I will have posts about our dinners and experiences at Walt Disney World over the next few weeks sprinkled among my posts about our dinner game.  I realized when I was away that my blog just isn’t about food it is really about our adventures in life told with food and love.  We all have to have some sort of relationship to food (some of us more than others) because it is what gives us fuel and sustains us.  It is filled with meaning and memories.  The smell of sauerkraut can transport me back to my childhood home, the smell of oranges takes me to Florida and an amazing dish we had while vacationing there as a child….  The list goes on and on.

But, this dish was the last dish we had just before vacation to use up the last bits and pieces in my refrigerator.  I try to be frugal with our food budget and extras so that we can go on trips and send our kids to classes and camps.  That means using up all the bits and pieces in the hydrater or freezer before they mold or get freezer burn.  This dish is was created to get the bits and pieces used up.

Another chicken dish for dinner.  Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboards are getting bare. The bottom of the freezer and pantry are in sight.  As my “No-Buy” January is coming to an end I will admit that I bought two cases of petite diced tomatoes the other day because they were $.39 a can.  I use canned diced tomatoes all the time, when fresh tomatoes are not in season, and that was a rock bottom price for our area so I felt okay with it. But, I am still on a mission to complete “No-Buy” January.

This dish is a creation that I made using several recipes.  I didn’t quite have enough of any one thing to make some of the other recipes I found while searching on Pinterest so I decided to combine all the things we like into one new dish.

Verdict:

This was a quick and tasty dish!  The kids loved sopping up the sauce with the mashed potatoes and then when those ran out they used some of the leftover bread I made the other night.  My son liked the mashed potatoes but said he would have preferred roasted potatoes instead of mashed to add a bit more texture to the dish.  This would be great over egg noodles, roasted potatoes or rice.

I served this dish with a side of green beans and a spinach salad.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs. chicken breasts, cut into tenders
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 TBSP Morton’s Nature’s Seasoning
• 3 TBSP butter
• 2 (14.5 oz) cans of petite diced tomatoes
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 4 TBSP brown sugar
• 5 TBSP white vinegar
• 4 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce
• 4 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp mustard powder
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• dash of hot pepper sauce, to taste
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 large red or orange pepper, chopped

Directions:

1. On a plate, combine flour and Seasoned Salt, to well combined. Coat chicken breasts with flour mixture.
2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat, and brown chicken on all sides. Remove from skillet, and drain on paper towels.
3. In the same skillet, combine the tomatoes, water, brown sugar, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Season with chili powder, mustard, garlic and hot pepper sauce.
4. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and return chicken to skillet. Cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Add onion and orange pepper to pan, stir well and cover.  Cook an addition 10 to 15 minutes until pepper is softened.
6. Serve over mashed potatoes, egg noodles or roasted potatoes.