Chicken with Fire-Roasted Tomatoes

Sounds fancy huh?  It's not really though because you buy the can of fire-roasted tomatoes for like $0.66, it's not like you're charring them yourself over an open flame.  I don't have a lot of recipes like this one, that utilize the fresh veggies of the season, because I've never been much of a gardener...so I don't have a bunch of my own fresh produce to use up.  If I see a recipe that sounds good, I buy the veggies fresh if I can, and frozen if I can't. But this recipe is a good one to use up fresh green beans, and from what I understand, if you grow beans, you have zero beans for much of the summer, and then 1,000,000 beans for a week once they start producing.  If you are (or will be) in that situation, then this is a good recipe for those bumper-crop times.  Also, the chicken part of the recipe is very easy, so this recipe is good on three levels...looks good, uses up fresh green beans, and is easy.  The hardest part of this recipe was snapping the ends of the beans, and I had my kids do that ;)

We had this with leftover potato salad, but I took the picture before I put it on the plate, because I didn't want to mess up my plating for the picture. Ha.  It wasn't my idea to plate it like this, that's how they did it in the picture in the Simple & Delicious magazine.

Chicken with Fire-Roasted Tomatoes
2 tbsp salt-free garlic herb seasoning blend (I used Pampered Chef Garlic & Herb Seasoning)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes, optional (I left them out)
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can (14.5 oz) fire-roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
3/4 lb fresh green beans, trimmed
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp butter

Mix the first 5 ingredients and rub over chicken.  In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat.  Brown chicken on both sides.

Add tomatoes; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10-12 minutes or until meat thermometer reads 165*.

In a 2-qt microwave-safe dish, combine beans and water; microwave, covered, on high 3-4 minutes.  Drain. (mine took longer to seem ready to me...6 minutes).

Remove chicken from skillet; keep warm.  Stir butter and beans into tomato mixture. 

Serve with chicken.

So let me tell you that my kids are very used to canned green beans.  I love them so much, how mushy and salty they are.  I could eat them every day.  So fresh green beans, even when they're cooked, obviously have a very different texture.  One that the younger two did not care for.  I made them eat several, but I get it.  It's not as yummy.  Everybody else ate them all.  The chicken was very good with the tomatoes, almost chicken parm-ish.  Overall, this came together quickly and easily and it's a good summertime meal.