Chicken and Winter Vegetables with Balsamic Fig Sauce

Have you ever had a particular flavor or spice in a dish that you've tried to recreate? Our good friend had us over for a holiday dinner and made a recipe that entailed delicious apricot preserves with Dijon mustard and shallots over pork tenderloin. I'm not doing it justice by that description but it was really tasty. I've decided to make a variation of that using fig preserves, shallots and chicken along with seasonal vegetables. One reason for this recipe is that I'm always trying to include lots of fresh vegetables especially at dinner time; using a large skillet I simply saute seasonal vegetables adding a little no salt chicken or vegetable stock at the end and steam until tender. I suppose in the recipe below you could skip the chicken and just use the vegetables for a healthier and lighter version.

Recipe:
Trim 2 chicken breasts of extraneous fat and season with salt and pepper. I use kosher salt sparingly.

Heat 2 tbls of olive oil or expeller pressed grape seed oil in saute pan and cook chicken until no longer pink inside.Remove chicken and keep warm.  Add one chopped shallot and saute for 2 minutes then add 1 cup each of broccoli florets, cauliflower, and carrots and some chopped thyme and cook for 10 minutes adding a little chicken stock at the end. Cut chicken into strips on the diagonal and put back into pan with vegetables and cook another 3 minutes then remove to warm plate.

Sauce: 2 tbls fig preserves, 1 tbls balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon mustard. Whisk into saute pan with remaining chicken stock and heat through. Pour over chicken and vegetables. Serve with brown Basmati rice. I cheated a little and used the microwave version of rice from Whole Foods ( Seeds of Change), it's delicious.

I also made a salad of winter greens, radicchio and escarole with a vinaigrette. for the vinaigrette: macerate small shallot with juice of lemon add a pinch of salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup of olive oil. This is a tart but good dressing for heavier lettuces.