A while back, in honor of Julia’s Child’s birthday (she would have been 104 this year), I created a dish that embodies one of her many excellent sayings: “The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.”
You can fuss all you want with fancier dishes, exotic ingredients and new techniques, but isn’t it true that when you make something super-homey, super-comforting, that’s when everyone asks for seconds? When in doubt, choose comfort food.
Here, thinly sliced chicken breasts are enveloped in a creamy, cheesy sauce peppered with wilted spinach and sundried tomatoes.
Sundried tomatoes were all the rage years ago, and then they faded out of fashion, but it seems a shame to turn your back on a great ingredient just because it was a little overexposed for a while. If you can find real sundried tomatoes — which won’t be hard little dried-up disks but rather pliant, brick-red, chewy bites — then that will make all the difference. Look for them in a store that sells good Italian ingredients. Oil-packed sundried tomatoes can also be used, but use paper towels to blot excess oil before chopping them.