Summer Garden Paella

I've been cleaning out my pantry and coming across all sorts of enticing ingredients. The Valencia rice really caught my eye, because I had just had to struggle with the paella pans to get to the 3/4 sheet pans in my vertical storage cabinet. I have many recipes and even full books on
paella, but I wanted to keep things simple and use what I had on hand. So foraging into the fridge I found a chicken breast. On my vines in front of the house, I found eggplants, a green bell pepper and several ripe plum tomatoes. There is an assortment of basil plants in the herb garden to complement, and a ratatouille paella starts to take shape.

1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 chicken breast, cut into 1 inch cubes, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 small eggplant, diced
1/2 small bell pepper, diced
4 medium plum tomatoes, diced
2 tablespoons shredded basil leaves
1 clove garlic
1 cup rice
1 1/2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste

Warm the olive oil in a small braising pan over medium heat, then add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the chicken cubes and raise the heat to medium high, until chicken is slighly browned. Keep the onions moving so they will caramelize without burning. Reduce the heat back to medium. Add the eggplants and peppers, and cook for two minutes, then grate in the garlic and cook one minute longer. Add the tomatoes, cover and cook for 5 minutes until the tomatoes are soft. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Then add the rice and water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes until the rice is cooked and the water is absorbed.