The Foodie Files

I was wandering around Trader Joe's the other day trying to figure out what to make for dinner when the thought occurred to me: what if nothing sounds good because I'm craving something I've never made before?  What if it's something I've never tasted before?  And if that is the case...what might that something be?  For whatever reason, this whole ordeal was all of a sudden quite exciting for me so I took a second to think about what flavors sounded appealing.  I came up with the following combo...chicken, roasted garlic, pesto, parmesan cheese.  I knew I wanted to roast the garlic separately but I also didn't want the addition to feel like an afterthought so I came up with the idea to stuff the chicken breast.  I've never made stuffed chicken before so I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants but I'll tell you what- it sure did taste great!  The whole whole entree ended up working together perfectly which was delightful.  So glad I tried something new...hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients:

4 large heads of garlic

4 sprigs of thyme

4 chicken breasts

4 TBS parmesan cheese, roughly cut

6 TBS pesto

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

I started by roasting up some garlic (a process we covered in an earlier Foodie File...check it out here).  Side note: there's no flavor in the world like roasted garlic!  It's one of my very favorite treats.

Preheat the oven to 375F.  Mash roasted garlic cloves and mix in 2 TBS of parmesan cheese.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Cut a pocket into the center of each chicken breast and stuff with 1/2 TBS roasted garlic mixture.

Coat the bottom of a casserole dish with 2 TBS of pesto, then top with seasoned chicken.  Add 1 TBS of pesto to each chicken breast and spread evenly.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes.  Remove aluminum foil and top with remaining parmesan cheese.  Broil on high for 3-5 minutes.