How Not to Burn Dinner–Chicken Cacciatore style

I almost burnt dinner. I almost cooked it to dinner death. I’d never made cacciatore before. It sounded very Italian and very difficult, but when I looked at the ingredients, I had everything but the chicken breasts and a few canned items. Well, hey! I can do this! I didn’t anticipate getting locked out of the house and overcooking the chicken. But I’ll let you read that in the end results.

Matt "the cheese lover's" plate.

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Spicy, low-fat Marinara sauce

In Brazil, no one cooks out of cans. It’s foreign to them. I remember the first time I witnessed homemade marinara sauce cooked on the stove. Created by a Salvadorian Brazilian girl named Heloisa in a flat we shared in Florence, Italy, she stirred it with a wooden spoon, letting it bubble and ooze. She told me I needed to stop my American nonsense of buying bottles of ketchup and squirting it over my spaghetti, like it was a real meal. Sure, it tasted like crap but I wasn’t making much money. What was the big deal?

Unfortunately at that time in my life, cooking was not a priority. Heloisa showed me how to make Brazilian mariana, but today all I remember was that I was hungry, it smelled good and I was eyeing her Coco-Puffs on top of the refrigerator. I kept thinking if I ate them for dinner, I would be expected to buy her a new box the next time I went to the grocery. Ahh, wasted youth.

I'll try the Italian spice.....next time.

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