Chicken, Artichoke, Tomatoes, Wine=Delicious!

I finally got around to this week's meal on Wednesday night. My brother-in-law and his girlfriend came over for dinner, so I decided that I would make the chicken for them! I thought the stuffing was pretty easy to make. I didn't really measure anything, just threw in the different ingredients and cooked until the wine was mostly cooked out and then added the cheese. Stuffing the chicken was harder than I thought it was going to be...but it probably would have helped if I had toothpicks rather than having to cut down wooden skewers which really weren't cooperating in the process. The stuffing was also a little oily from the oil the sundried tomatoes were in, but it wasn't noticeable once the chicken breasts were cooked.

I served the chicken with corn on the cob and corn chips with guacamole that my brother-in-law's girlfriend made...and of course, the rest of the wine! It was an odd little combination, but everything was tasty!

The best part was that I ended up with an extra breast to take for lunch the next day! Yum!

Bacon always makes things better

I'm always a fan of stuffed stuff.

A couple of substitutions - white onion instead of red since I always have those on hand. Boneless, skinless chicken thigh instead of breast since it was cheaper. Dried cilantro instead of parsley.

The hubby made oven dried tomatoes (an idea we got from our favourite panini place). They're just as intensely flavoured, but more sweet and less tart than sundried tomatoes. These are pretty simple - just drizzle some olive oil and salt on grape tomatoes and bake them for a very long time at low heat (200F or so)

Other than the onion and parsley, I more or less followed the recipe.

I have to admit at this point, I wondered if I had done it wrong

After the success of last week's recipe, Mr. Ringy insisted on incorporating bacon into this week's recipe. So I wrapped them in pancetta. Then I baked them for about 35 minutes at 400F.

Sorry you can't see the chicken... because it's wrapped in bacon

We had them with potato bhaji (into which we also threw in the extra artichoke stuffing) and a lovely Chardonnay which was a gift for performing Ave Maria at a 40th wedding anniversary last weekend.

Naked - so it must be good!

Mmm, artichokes

I love artichokes, in all their varieties. I like artichoke dip, fried artichokes, artichokes in my salad, marinated ones right from the jar. I even cooked my very own whole artichoke for the first time this year, so I did a little happy dance when I saw this recipe, even though I am totally incompetent at rolling things up in chicken and getting it to stay there.

Nevertheless, I made these last night and they turned out great, even if the stuffing leaked out the ends. My only caveat is that I would not want to make them on a week night again. We don't eat dinner until almost 10:00 p.m. because of J's work schedule, so this was just too much work for that late at night. However, my husband told me they were fantastic about four times during dinner and he ate two of them, so this one goes in the recipe box for sure.