Guest Blog: Gorgonzola Stuffed Chicken Breasts

For today's guest blog, my sister offered to share a great recipe that she recently made at home.  I love gorgonzola and it is always nice to have a variety of recipes for chicken.  This sounds really tasty and surprisingly easy!  Thanks Kel for sharing again today!
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I wanted to make a special meal for my friend Andrea, so I of course went to http://www.allrecipes.com/ for an idea.  She’s very health conscious, so when it comes to food she tends to stick to fish, chicken, and salads.  So when I came across the recipe for Gorgonzola Stuffed Chicken Breasts, I knew it would be perfect.  I made some substitutions, which I note below, but I think that the recipe would be just as good if used as written.       

2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves      
¼ cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese (I used goat cheese instead because Andrea doesn’t like Gorgonzola and it’s less fattening)     
2 tablespoons fresh minced parsley (I used dried parsley because I had it on my spice rack) 
2 tablespoons minced shallot (I used red onion instead because I already had it on hand)      
1 clove minced garlic (I’m a huge garlic fan, so I used two cloves)      
4 thick slices of applewood smoked bacon (I used turkey bacon instead to cut down on the fat and calories)      
Salt and pepper to taste

To start, I preheated the oven to 375 and sprayed a glass baking dish with cooking spray.  Then I chopped the onions and sweated them out on the stove with a bit of butter.  I like onions, but for this recipe I thought it sounded best to cook them off for a bit before adding them to the cheese mixture.  Once the onions were finished, I added them to the goat cheese, parsley, and garlic mix.  Next, I sliced the chicken breasts across the middle and stuffed each breast with the cheese mixture, salted and peppered the meat, and then wrapped each breast with the turkey bacon.  

The chicken breasts were set to bake for about 35 minutes, so in the meantime I heated some asparagus on the stove.  I sprinkled a little olive oil, salt and pepper on the asparagus, and once finished, topped with some Molly McButter.  If you’ve never used Molly McButter, you should give it a try.  It has a nice, salty butter flavor and has no calories…what’s better than that!  You can find it in the spices aisle.

The chicken came out perfectly.  The bacon helped to keep the chicken breasts juicy, and it didn’t get over cooked or come out chewy.  It had the perfect crispiness.  The cheese mix paired well with the chicken and bacon and had a nice creamy texture.  I think that I made a good choice with the onions because they may have been a bit overwhelming if not cooked first.  Andrea raved about it…she said she didn’t like it, she loved it.  So if you’re looking to please your picky healthy eater, give this recipe a try!