Spicy Chicken Breasts and Garlic Spinach

I guess I don’t really have a special story to go with this one, though yesterday I did think about how I could have started a blog called “100 Things to do with Chicken Breasts,” and this dish could be featured in it. Except that I don’t have a blog called that.

It’s just a simple spices rub. It’s written for chicken breasts, but I see no problem using it with any cut that you want.

Here’s a breakdown of what goes into it:

• 2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Sprinkle it on both sides of the chicken breasts (there will be plenty leftover to save for next time),

and sauté in oil in a skillet.

 

Now for the garlic spinach. I always have massive quantities of fresh baby spinach on hand since I eat it with salads almost every day at lunchtime, so this was a nice change from my usual.

Though I didn’t follow the directions exactly. It wanted me to slice up some whole garlic cloves. I didn’t have whole cloves, so I just took minced garlic from a jar in the fridge. In retrospect, far too much of it.

Sauté the garlic in butter for a few minutes.

Add a bunch of spinach. It said “2 bags” worth. I didn’t know how much that was so I just guessed at a good amount. It’s hard to judge spinach since it cooks down so much, but I added it a handful at a time and just went until it looked right.

When it’s wilted, sprinkle it with some salt and lemon juice. In retrospect, too much lemon juice!

Verdict:

The chicken was pretty good. Not fabulous, nothing earth-shattering, but it was flavorful and I guess that’s all you can really hope for when it comes to chicken breasts.

The spinach was a bit disappointing. The texture of the minced garlic wasn’t super pleasant, and I just plain put too much lemon juice in. I made it again a few nights later (sans pictures), and scaled back on both, and it was much better.

And that was that.