What Are Herbs de Provence

I realized I might need to explain what Herbs de Provence are since I had no clue until yesterday or the day before. Well, here they are in list form.

Thyme
Wild Thyme
Marjoram
Oregano
Rosemary
Basil
Chervil
Savory
Lavender
Fennel
Bay Leaf

I did not find proportions for these so I guess you just have to decide for yourself how much of each. Remember "use what you have." If you don't have all of them everytime I'm pretty sure it won't kill the recipe. Just put more wine in the cook.

A Night in the South of France

Tried a new rendition of a crockpot Provencal Chicken that I had tried before. This one was as good or better than the last. I love to take a recipe and work on it to come up with something that is all me. I think my starting point was a thrive crockpot recipe that was just a little boring to me. I even doctored it up the first time now that I think about it with the wine from my wine glass.

Tonight's version started with a Provencal Chicken I chose at random from the internet. It looked pretty good and reminded me of the recipe I used before. Preping the ingredients I found a hard copy of the original recipe I used and was reminded that I like beans in this dish (beans rock they allow for any dish to go that much farther).

Oh, yeah, all this preping is going on at 5:30 in the morning with a 21 month old darting around the kitchen. Well, this morning he has just set up camp in the middle of the kitchen with his milk and a bowl of broken up pop-tart.

I thawed the chicken strip pieces (use what you got) overnight in the sink. Amazingly no cat damage. Broke out the cutting board and chunked up an onion (chop sounds so dainty), sliced the two bell peppers (use what you want I used red and yellow), mashed and minced the garlic.

Starting off I put some olive oil in the bottom of the crockpot. Salted and peppered the chicken strip pieces. Then layered it on the bottom of the pot. Next, I put the garlic and onion down with the peppers on top. Then I poured two cans of pinto beans on top (use what you got)of that and rinsed out one can with Walasiyi Blood Mountain Red and poured that in. Tomatoes, got to put tomatoes in. I had a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies so I put that in there and kind of stirred it up a little. Actually, I just put my hands in (washed of course) and turned a little of it over. Last of all the recipe calls for Herbs de Provence; well, I used Herbs de Italia (it was really a bottle of Italian seasoning).

At this point I put the lid on and turned the crockpot on low for 8 hours and left to go to work.

For the interlude signifying the workday here is the ingredient list
8 pieces of chicken (depending on the size)
4 cloves of garlic (give or take) minced up
2 bell peppers sliced (color depends on you)
2 onions chunked up
1 cup pitted green olives (or more if you like)
1 can diced tomatoes (I think Italian style would be best)
2 cans beans (whatever type you want or have on hand)
1 can wine (I rinse out a bean can with the wine) red or white.
olive oil (use what you need)
2 tbsp Herbs de Provence
salt and pepper

Now, back home after a wonderful day of teaching and rescheduling soccer matches due to rain that went away before the matches should have started, I get out the bag of brown rice and forget how long to cook it. Oh, I remembered eventually. At least I forgot on the short side. I did think of one thing after I had cooked the rice and finished the first bowl. Try cooking the rice in the juice from the crock pot instead of just water. I felt that the rice kind of blanded the dish up just a tad bit.

It smelled awesome. It tasted great and everybody had enough. I love this dish to distraction because it gets better every time I try it. Next time I intend to make sure some bay leaf and rosemary at least get into the herb mix. Especially the rosemary since I have a great honking bush in the middle of my backyard (I was just lazy and it was kind of dark that early in the morning). Also, I shall try white wine if there is any in the house.

So, that is what was for dinner. Provencal Chicken served over rice with sweet tea. I do dearly love my peasant food.