It hasn’t been the best week for my diet. Actually, that’s putting it a bit mildly. The last couple of days were filled with delicious temptations that I was not able to resist. Food is totally my kryptonite! Being that Hubby and I shared our anniversary this week, surely I had to partake in all the goodies, right? There are times when you can’t just not eat or you will stick out like a major party pooper… although, truth be told, I certainly didn’t need to eat as much as I did. Well, now that all the anniversary festivities are behind me (or at least until I go to Barcelona… Oh God, how am I supposed to fit myself into a bathing suit???), I have to get my expanding bum in gear. Part of that means no more sweets recipes for now… maybe.
I recently found this great recipe for pesto chicken on the BBC Good Food website and I made a few little alterations so that it would be a bit more figure friendly. You got to try this one, its great! It was awarded the prestigious Mr. Persnickety stamp of approval. He said it was one of the best dinners I made in a long time. Hmmm… does that mean my food normally sucks? Or was this just exceptional? I thought it was pretty freakin good, and it will definitely be a new addition to my dinner repertoire. I think this would also be a nice dish to serve to guests. I thought it looked pretty impressive on the plate. The tomatoes certainly give the dish a nice colour.
Creamy Pesto Chicken with Roasted Tomatoes (serves 4)
For the pesto:
A handful of basil leaves (approximately 15g)
25g pine nuts
25g grated hard cheese, like Parmesan
1 large garlic clove
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of salt
Put all of the ingredients in the food processor and whizz them up. Easy! Still, if you want to make this dish even easier, use your favourite shop bought pesto (use about 3 tablespoons worth to mix with the cream cheese).
Chicken dish:
4 Chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
Pesto (recipe above)
85g cream cheese
100g bread crumbs
175g cherry tomatoes on the vine
Olive oil spray (or you can use regular olive oil)
Heat the oven to 200C.
Using a very sharp knife, cut the chicken breasts on the horizontal, almost all the way through, but not completely. Basically you want it to be able to open like a book.
Mix together the cream cheese and pesto. Spoon a quarter of the mixture onto each of the chicken breasts, and spread it out. Spray each chicken breast with a little olive oil and then dip both sides of the chicken breast in the bread crumbs until it is coated. Place the chicken breasts in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. About 15 minutes into the cooking, spray the cherry tomatoes with a little olive oil and put those in to cook with the chicken breasts.
This is great served with roasted or mashed potatoes.
