Recipe: Garlic Balsamic Chicken

I haven't tried many new recipes lately, but I really try to make at least one new thing a week--it's been a couple weeks since I have though.  It's so much easier to fall back on some of the same recipes that you know how to do every week.  Well, this week I looked in my fridge and saw I had some chicken breasts, so I decided to look for a recipe using that.  On allrecipes.com I came across a recipe that sounded easy and didn't take a whole lot of ingredients (pretty much my criteria for almost any new recipe I try).   This was a recipe for Garlic Balsamic Chicken:

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 pound mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. olive oil
6 cloves garlic
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1 tbsp. butter

I sliced whole white mushrooms before hand.  You can buy them pre-sliced, but these were on sale.

Directions:

1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.  Rinse the mushrooms and pat dry.  Season the flour with salt and pepper and dredge the chicken breasts in the flour mixture.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat and saute until it is nicely brown on one side (about 3 minutes).

2. Add the garlic.  Turn the chicken breasts and scatter the mushrooms over them.  Continue frying, shaking the skillet and stirring the mushrooms.  Cook for about 3 minutes then add the vinegar, broth, bay leaf, and thyme.  Cover tightly and simmer over medium low heat for about 10 minutes, turning occasionally.

3. Transfer the chicken to a plate and cover with foil.  Set aside. Continue simmering the sauce, uncovered, over medium high heat for about 7 minutes.  Swirl in the butter or margarine and discard the bay leaf.  Pour mushroom mixture over the chicken and serve.

There were just a couple things that I did differently from this suggested directions.  I also had some green beans and snap peas on hand so I steamed them for about two minutes then threw them in with the mushrooms and chicken to simmer.  I also had some red onion, so I sliced that up and tossed it in when I threw in the mushrooms.  I didn't have a bay leaf, so I added a bit more thyme than was suggested.   I served this with rice, but you could also serve with noodles, baked potatoes, anything that sounds good to you!

Overall, I thought this turned out pretty good.  The chicken was tender and juicy with a tartness of the balsamic and a bit of sweetness from the garlic.  Ross thought this was pretty good as well; it wasn't our favorite meal ever, but not bad for a Monday night!
~Kate