Dairy Free Friday

Happy Friday!  I hope you all had a wonderful week!

Today I'm sharing my favorite recipe that I've made so far in 2012 - which happens to be both gluten and dairy free!  I found it on the blog, For the Love of Cooking.  It's my new go-to blog as she posts easy, healthy recipes.  This recipe is called Tuscan Chicken with White Beans and Spinach.  I like it because it requires very few ingredients (most of which you will have on hand), it's made in one pot, and it's a quick recipe (takes about 30 minutes from start to finish).

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of lean bacon, cooked and chopped
• 2 tsp olive oil (divided)
• 5 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of any fat
• Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste
• Garlic powder, to taste
• Dried basil, to taste
• 1/2 sweet yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 15 oz can of white beans, rinsed & drained
• 2 cups of baby spinach

My modifications:

• I omitted the bacon because I knew I'd never use up a whole package of bacon. Leaving it out didn't impact the dish, in my opinion
  
• I liked the bean/tomato part of the dish so much, I doubled the onion, tomatoes, and white beans so there would be more of the bean mixture.  

Here is the recipe in pictures!

Season the chicken with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and dried basil.  Brown the chicken thighs on medium high in 1 T of Olive Oil.  If you are vegetarian, I think it would work well to sub in your 'fake sausage' or whatever that stuff is called!

Once the chicken is brown, remove from pan, set aside, and cover with foil.  Reduce heat to medium, add additional T of Olive Oil.  Saute the onions for 4-5 minutes, until softened.  Then add the garlic and saute for another minute.

Add the tomatoes, white beans, dried basil, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Cook for 4-5 minutes until mixture is hot.

Add the spinach, heat until it cooked down, about 1-2 minutes.

Return chicken/juices to pan. 

It's so easy and SO good.  And relatively healthy (especially if you made it with chicken breasts instead of thighs). 

Have you made any good, new recipes lately?