Sun-dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Filling:
2 Tbl Olive Oil
2 Shallots - minced
4 Cloves Garlic - minced
8 Marinated Sun-dried Tomatoes - sliced
2 Tbl capers
6 Basil Leaves - minced
Juice of 1/2 a Lemon
White Wine - a few splashes - less than 1/4 C
Salt & Pepper
1/4 Can Medium Black Olives - minced

Heat oil in chef pan. Saute shallots and garlic for a few minutes, do not let the garlic brown. And in rest of ingredients and saute for a few more minutes. Removing (leaving as much oil in the pan as possible) and set aside.

3 Chicken Breasts
3 Slices Mozzarella Cheese - each folded in half length-ways.
6 Slices Proscuitto

Remove chicken skin and remove meat from bone. Take the "tender" and any good meat from bone, mince and set aside. Make a pocket in the chicken breasts. Shinny side down, cut a couple of diagonal slits in the breast, starting near the middle and slicing towards the outside - without cutting all the way through.

Saute Chicken breasts in oil, cut side down first. Saute for a few minutes on each side, until breasts are brown, but do not need to be cooked all the way through. Remove from pan. Stuff with filling, cover with cheese and wrap with 2 slices proscuitto. Place in baking dish greased with one tbl olive oil, stuffed side up. Bake at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes.

1/4 Can Black Olives - sliced
Small jar Marinated Artichoke Hearts
2 Basil Leaves - minced
Salt and Pepper
1 Tbl Butter
White Wine - a few splashes
Balsimic Vinegar - a few splashes

Take minced chicken and remaining filling and saute in chef pan until chicken is cooked. Add artichokes, olives, basil and salt & pepper. Sautee a few minutes, add in butter until melted, stir, then add in wine & vinegar and saute a few more minutes.

Accompaniments
Sauted one thinly sliced yellow squash in the pan with salt and pepper.

Sauted leaves of 1 bunch of Spinach in the pan after removing the chicken mixture.

Cooked Orzo, drained, added a few leaves of minced basil, olive oil, minced parsley, a touch of lemon juice and salt.

Serving
Served with a chilled Vouvray. Placed chicken breast on plate, chicken mixture next to it and a little drizzled across the breast.

Difficulty/Cooking time
A fairly easy dish, but took a while. It took me about 2 hours from getting home with the ingredients to serving it. I did prep all the ingredients up front and wash dishes as I was prepping. I also arranged them all and took pictures. This added some time, as I usually prep and cook as I go. But it made it fairly stress-free (didn't have to worry about trying to get the next thing prepped in time to get it into the pan, etc.) and provided less cleanup at the end.

Once I put the chicken in the oven, the 25 minutes baking time was plenty of time to saute everything else and cook the orzo. That probably only takes 15 minutes.

Modifications
Skinless/bonelss chicken breasts can be used and the chicken mixture becomes a vegtable mixture. That was my original thought, but split breasts (w/ skin and bone) were on sale and putting the minced chicken in the mixture turned out great - but isn't necessary.

Pictures
I decided I'd start taking pictures of recipies as I make them. Partly in case someone wants to see what it looks like, and aslo because its fun. :-)

• Prepped ingredients
  
• Stuffed chicken
  
• Served
  
• Served - close up

- posted by James @ 5:43 AM (0) comments