I tried desperately to take my own picture of this but my camera batteries were dead.  I searched high and low for more batteries but apparently we are out… so you get a picture I swiped off the internet.  So this is basically what it looked like, except mine didn’t have mushrooms- but they would have been a good addition, if my husband would eat them.

I’d never had Chicken Cacciatore before.  Which, I think, is strange because it’s fairly common and I’ve heard of it forever and I’ve seen several recipes for it, I’ve just never eaten it.  So I don’t really have a standard for comparison- but we had my parents over for dinner last night, and they’ve had Chicken Cacciatore before and said this was the best they’ve had.  We all thought it was really really good- and it was super simple and didn’t have a million ingredients, proving that simple is better.

I basically used this recipe by Giada DeLaurentis, but I changed things up just a tad.  Because that’s how I roll.  Actually, it was sort of by accident but it worked out amazingly well (in the opinion of someone making this for the first time and who has never actually had this dish ever before in her life…), so I wrote down what I did and will be doing it again.

Chicken Cacciatore

1 whole, cut-up chicken (or 6-8 pieces of skin-on, bone-in chicken of your choice)
2 tea salt
1 tea freshly ground black pepper
1/2 C flour
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 3/4 C white wine (recipe called for dry, I had Chardonnay. It worked awesome and yeah, that’s a lot of wine… just roll with it, but make sure it’s a good wine because you can really taste it in the dish)
28 oz can diced tomatoes in their juice
3 Tbsp capers, drained and chopped
1 1/2 tea dried oregano

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge in flour. Heat oil in large skillet over med-hi. Brown chicken (in two batches if necessary, don’t crowd) in hot oil, about 3-5 minutes per side. Set chicken aside. Add a little more oil to the pan and sautee bell pepper and onion til the onion becomes translucent. Add garlic and stir for a minute. Add wine and simmer until it’s reduced by half, about 7-10 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and their juice, capers, and oregano. Add chicken back in and turn so it’s covered in sauce. Bring to a simmer and partially cover. Cook, turning chicken over and stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick, until chicken is cooked through- about 30 minutes. Remove chicken to a platter and boil sauce, stirring regularly, for about 10 minutes, or until sauce thickens a little. Pour over chicken and serve hot.