It's in the can

Whether it's what's on sale or the result of trying to pick hearty fall dishes, lately I seem to have pulled a lot of recipes involving canned tomatoes. I'm kicking myself a bit, because my tomato plants seem to be giving one last hurrah and last week I got several fresh fruits off the vine. But we used them right away -- as we should have, really, and they were good -- and here I am making another sauce thinking, "I wish I had enough real tomatoes to do this from scratch."

Next summer, I keep telling myself, next summer I will have more tomato plants and enough ripe ones at one time to make sauce.

But it is no longer summer, and I used canned tomatoes to make a chicken cacciatore.

I've been meaning to make this for about three weeks, actually, but kept forgetting to take the chicken out to defrost. I hate using the microwave to defrost things. The food never thaws evenly and you have some bits that are cooked while the rest is still rock-solid.

Yesterday, I remembered to take the chicken breasts out and let them thaw in the fridge. So when I took the meat out 24 hours later and found it covered in ice crystals and solid enough to break a tempered glass cutting board, I was more than a little irritable.

While it defrosted, unevenly, in the microwave, I did the rest of the prep work. The recipe said to dice the bell pepper. I chopped more than diced, but I liked the big pieces. I skipped over the part about fennel seed, it being one of those spices I don't use often enough to justify buying at this point in time. And, while Will and I like spicy food, the kids are still on the fence about it, so I used only a (generous) pinch of red pepper flakes instead of the full 1/2 teaspoon in the sauce, and left the jar out for adults to season their food as they wished.

The chicken browned nicely, although it seemed like too much oil was in the pan. I removed the chicken, added the pepper and herbs as directed and stirred them around. Then I poured in the tomatoes, wine and vinegar and the sauce smelled fantastic. I couldn't wait to try it. At this point, I realized the pasta water had finally come to a boil, so I let the sauce simmer while I dumped the spaghetti into the pasta pot.

I returned the chicken returned to the pan to cook through, which took about the same amount of time as the pasta. Again, the food smelled great, and it looked pretty good, too.

THE VERDICT: The sauce was decent enough, but didn't wow me as much as I thought it would based on its fragrance, and the chicken was a little dry. Will liked the sauce, going back for seconds, but thought the chicken was almost surplus. Keith and Alex said it was good, and they ate it. An on-the-fence recipe.