Nor'easter Blizzard Creation; Homemade tomato sauce with chicken

I left work early on a Wednesday to drive two hours to take a cooking class with my father. I arrived around 4:45 pm and though it was a bit chilly out, it wasn't painfully so, nor was it cold enough to cause frost on my car. We took the class, which lasted until about 9:00pm and then separately drove back to my parents' house for the evening.

The next morning I woke up around 8:00am and just like in New England style, there was already about two feet of snow and it was not going to let up for several hours thereafter. I had been in text communication with my coworkers and had made plans to conduct our work meetings via phone, which would last for the duration of the day (apparently).

So, my original plan to have a quick breakfast and leave by 9:00 am left me with the conundrum of what to eat. The twist to my conflict is that four days prior my parents had returned home from a two-week long trip, and there was very little food in the house.

So I found:

• 1 Can diced tomatoes
• Maple syrup
• Spinach
• Fresh basil
• two halved onions
• 15 cloves of garlic varying in size
• half a rotisserie chicken

• I destemmed and steamed the spinach and basil
• I finely chopped the garlic, divided into two parts
• I chopped the onions and sautéed them

• I threw the onions, canned tomatoes, 1/2 of the diced garlic and the basil into the food processor and then pureed until the ingredients were uniformed.
• *** SIDE NOTE: I strongly suggest investing in the Cuisinart brand, my mother just replaced the one she inherited from her mother 33 years ago, aging it at about 40 years with ZERO issues before the motor finally punched out!

I then poured the mixture into a warm pan over medium heat.

I let simmer while I added about two table spoons of REAL maple syrup

REMEMBER you can always add more, but you can't take away, flavor to taste.

• Separately I sautéed 1/2 of the remaining garlic until it was nicely browned, quickly sautéed the spinach and then tossed them into my sauce.
• I then took the last bit of raw garlic and sautéed it in a pan with the rotisserie chicken, which I had somewhat aggressively ripped apart into lazily "shredded" pieces, until the chicken was a golden brown.

Lastly, I tossed some sauce into the pan with my chicken, mixed and then served myself.

There was a ton of sauce I put it in a glass tupperware container and let it sit, uncovered on the counter to cool. 

Both my parents used the sauce in various dishes over the next few days... My father put some sauce in an egg and cheese omelette and my mother had the sauce over pasta. 

The great thing about this sauce is its versatility. It can be used as a sort of appetizer crostini spread with some stinky cheese, as a sauce to bake chicken thighs in, You could even add some vegetable (or other) stock and make it into a soup!

So, I do recognize that the final product is not particularly pretty, however, it was absolutely delicious.