The other day Mrs J was asked how she finds the energy to cook so many things. How she finds the motivation to plan, to go to the shop, to find all the specific things needed to cook these recipes.

Nowadays she has the time to do it all, but the honest answer is she doesn’t.

Well, at least not always. Sometimes she plans. Sometimes she half-plans and then changes things depending on what she forgot and what she can substitute. Sometimes she just plain improvises the whole thing.

What’s noteworthy about this is that most of the time Mrs J doesn’t consider cooking to be actual work. So she doesn’t think about how much time or effort she spends (or doesn’t spend) on it.

Rest assured though, she always tries and tests everything. At a minimum on Mr J and/or herself.

You’re welcome.

This chicken dish is an example of Mrs J just cooking something with what she had at hand. Back to basics. Back in the kitchen. Back to chicken.

Mr J seemed to like it. Maybe you will too?

For two people you will need two fresh chicken breasts. Season the chicken with about half a teaspoon of dried “Herbes de Provence”. This mix of dried herbs is so common just about every supermarket has it. You could of course use your own mix of dried thyme, rosemary, sage, garlic, onion…

In any case, also season with half a teaspoon of dried sweet paprika and some fresh black pepper.

Brown the chicken breasts all around in a tablespoon of butter. Add plenty of salt as you go along with the browning. Remove the chicken from the pan and cover with some foil while you make the sauce.

Now add another tablespoon of butter and a chopped clove of garlic to the pan. Cook the garlic for a minute or two, without browning it. Add two medium roughly chopped tomatoes.

Mrs J wasn’t expecting the queen so she only removed the woody parts of the tomato and didn’t bother to blanch or peel anything. Also add a tablespoon of white balsamic vinegar.

if there’s not enough liquid from the tomato to make a sauce, add a couple of tablespoons of water. If the tomato isn’t sweet enough, add up to a tablespoon of sugar. Season with salt and pepper.

When the sauce is to taste put the chicken breasts back in the pan and cover. Keep on low heat until the chicken breasts are just cooked through. Add a handful of chopped ruccola.

Serve from the pan, which looks quite nice already – or plate the chicken breast over fresh pasta, spooning the sauce over it. Decorate with a few more leaves of ruccola.