CTM: A Poor Man's Feast

MOAR FOOD

My sister told me today that I don't write enough. This is for you.

About two weeks ago I decided I wanted to eat what has long been a staple meal in my family's ethereal recipe book: CTM. It, like much in my life as a military brat, is an acronym--we aren't just crazy. It stands for "Chicken Tomatoes Mozzarella." We ate it a lot while I was growing up because it is pretty cheap, and we were very, very poor. It is also fucking delicious, which made the being poor thing relatively forgettable for a while. 

You'll Need:

--2-4 chicken breasts. 2 feed 2-3 people fairly well, 4 feeds a family easy.

--Noodles. Your choice. We always went with egg noodles growing up, but this time I used some organic locally sourced brand (because Boulder) that were bow tie style.

--Tomatoes, canned or fresh, whatever you have/want. 1-2 cans unseasoned, diced, depending on how many people you are feeding. 2-5 fresh, again based on your number of stomachs to fill.

--An onion. I used red, because I prefer them, but my mother always made it with a vidalia. Use half an onion for a small amount, a full one for a family.

--Garlic cloves, also dependent on number of people. I used two cloves for feeding 3 people, I would say no more than 4 cloves though, it would be too much.

--Mozzarella. I used about 1/3 of a cup I think? Just use as much as you want really. You want the cheese to be kind of stringy and kind of part of the sauce that you end up with. For large families a full cup would be an easy measurement.

--Spices! Below is a bad picture of what I used. And my messy counter. But mostly the 11 kinds of spices. Left to right: Ground Cumin, Mediterranean Oregano, Paprika, Tarragon, Pepper, Salt, Marjoram, Celery Seeds, Thyme, Rubbed Sage, and Parsley. Dashes of each. Tarragon might seem odd, but it was just a sweet enough to offset the heaviness of everything else.

--Butter. Just a couple pats, enough to fry your onion and garlic, and a little extra to fry the chicken just so.

 Place your pan on the burning on a med/med high heat. Put 2/3 of the butter you have for this in the pan and let melt. While Butter is melting dice your onion and garlic cloves. Put onion and garlic into butter as it just starts to brown. Then add spices. I was heavy on the paprika because I like spicier foods, but you don't have to. Only use a dash/shake of each, it won't take much. Salt and pepper to taste.

 

While the onion and garlic fry up, start cutting up your chicken breasts. Cut them into nice bite sized pieces. Enjoy the picture showing more details of my messy counter.

 

Once the onions are nice and caramelized, add the chicken pieces into your pan. Once ALL of the chicken is in the pan and has had a few minutes to lightly brown on either side, add the remaining amount of your butter into the pan, spread around. This will keep help fry the chicken just a little and keep everything more moist than if you didn't use any more butter. This is a good time to add a little extra of the spices you like best. It was at this point I added another 4 or so dashes of paprika, and a couple dashes more salt, pepper, and I think thyme to mine.

 

While your chicken browns, start your pot of noodles. This will make sure that everything is ready at almost exactly the same time.

 

Add your tomatoes. I had to dice mine up. Seriously, just looking at these tomatoes makes me kind of hungry, curse it being almost midnight right now!

 I'm sad that this is the absolute best picture I managed to take of the whole process. I mean, the color composition of this photo is actually really cool, I think, but of all the things to have a perfectly focused phone picture of...

I promise I will clean my--well everything--and find my dslr's battery charger so I can take much better quality photos.

 

Once your tomatoes have gotten a chance to soften heat up, add in your mozzarella. I bought a fairly cheap, nice and "Boulder-y" hunk of organic locally sourced mozz from a local grocery store that I absolutely love here: Lucky's. 

 

I didn't even mind having to shred it myself. I actually kind of like it better that way.

 

 Slowly add in your shredded mozzarella, pinch-full by pinch-full. Stir the whole pan's contents while adding the cheese to help melt it faster and turn it into a sauce easier.

Once all your cheese is added and melted you should get something that looks like this! Only in focus. Serve over noodles! I don't drain mine, I just use one of those noodle scoops and place a serving of the CTM over top it. You could, alternatively, add your noodles into the pan and stir it all together before serving.

It really does look better when it is in focus, I swear! Enjoy!