Goat cheese & roasted red pepper stuffed Chicken Breasts -
Two boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 oz goat cheese (the creamy kind, usually french, not Feta)
1 clove garlic minced crazy tiny
1 red bell pepper (or buy roasted red peppers that come in a jar)
olive oil
seasonings to taste
To roast the red pepper: cook the pepper on the grill, turning often, until skin is mostly blackened and starting to bubble or peel away from the flesh. Alternately, you can do this in the oven - cook at a high heat, turning often until it looks as described above. Immediately put the cooked pepper into a ziploc bag. The pepper will steam inside the bag, and in a few minutes you should be able to remove the skin and the blackened bits. Mince the pepper as small as possible, or you can put it in a food processor or blender and make a sort of puree out of it. You'll only need a small amount of the pepper for this recipe, but roasted red peppers can be used for many other recipes.
For the Chicken: Cut a small slit in the side of the fat end of the chicken breast. Wiggle the knife around inside the breast to form a pocket, careful not to cut any additional holes in the breast, or make the original slit any bigger. Mix together the goat cheese, the minced garlic, and the roasted red pepper (to taste, use as much or as little as you'd like, but if you use too much it will overwhelm the taste of the goat cheese) Also mix in any spices that you feel like using. I never measure spices - typically I'll just put a sprinkle of whatever sounds good at the time. I would probably use salt and pepper, maybe a little onion powder for this. Fill the chicken breasts with the cheese mixture. You can do this with your fingers (kind of messy), or with a small spoon, but it's probably easiest to do this with a piping bag. If you don't have a piping bag, put the cheese mixture into a ziploc bag, squeeze it all into one corner, and then snip the corner of the bag with a pair of scissors. Insert the "nozzel" into the slit in the chicken and squeeze the bag to fill the chicken breast. Once the breasts are full, use a toothpick to close the slit. (Some cheese will probably ooze out during cooking, don't worry about it.) In a non-stick frying pan, heat about a tablespoon full of olive oil on medium heat. Place the chicken breasts in the oil and season - Salt, pepper, taragon, thyme...whatever sounds good to you. Put the lid on and let cook until the bottom of the chicken breasts start to look golden brown. Turn, and cover again. Cook until both sides are browned and the chicken is cooked through. Avoid turning too much because more cheese will come out if you move it around too much.
Serve over rice pilaf, with steamed veggies.
