Roasted Garlic and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts

This final chicken recipe was completely made up by me and turned out to be quite delicious (and pretty healthy, too) however, this blog post does not follow the normal format since I am not relating a recipe from an established source.

I knew the time had come to eat some of the frozen chicken out of the freezer but since it is getting too cold to grill outside I wanted to do something different with it. I had never made stuffed chicken breasts before but it was something I had looked into making multiple times. The recipe evolved a lot from what I first imagined to what I finally placed on the table so I am looking forward to playing around with the recipe some more at a later date.

ROASTED GARLIC

Full heads of garlic
olive oil
salt

I love roasted garlic and for some reason I was in the mood to roast some. I placed 7 garlic heads (with the tops chopped off) in a 8 X 8 glass baking dish and piled all of the chopped off tops in a pile in the middle. Then I, fairly generously, drizzled them with olive oil. I covered the pan with tin foil and placed it in a 350 degree oven. I started checking around 25 minutes later and removed most of the chopped off (smaller) pieces so they wouldn't burn. Around 35 minutes some of the smaller heads were done and removed but it took about 50 minutes for the larger heads. I allowed all of the heads of (now roasted) garlic to cool.

ROASTED GARLIC COMPOTE BUTTER (aka what to do with the rest of the roasted garlic)

2 heads roasted garlic
1 stick butter
salt

Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the papery heads and place in a mortar, sprinkle a little salt over the garlic. With a pestle mash the garlic. Add 1 stick of softened butter and mash again. (Add any other flavorings you want- I use a little chili powder, rosemary, etc.) Scoop out the mixture and place in the middle of a piece of parchment or waxed paper and roll into a long (tootsie roll looking) cylinder. Twist the ends. Refrigerate and use in a couple of days or freeze.

 Final Recipe:

Roasted Garlic Stuffed Chicken Breasts

2 chicken breasts (skinless, boneless)

2 heads of roasted garlic

2 tbs. chevre (creamy goat cheese)

2 tbs. (low-fat) cream cheese (softened)

1/4 lemon, zested

1/4 lemon juiced

toothpicks

2 tsp. dried sage

1/4 c. flour

salt

pepper

olive oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Start by slicing the chicken breasts horizontally, not all of the way through the back, so that you can lay the chicken breast open (like a book). Season. 

In a small bowl mix roasted garlic, chevre, cream cheese, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Stir until smoothish. Spread over opened chicken breasts and then close the chicken breasts and secure with toothpicks so that filling does not leak out. 

On a shallow pie plate mix flour, sage, salt and pepper. Dredge chicken breasts in flour. 

Heat oil in large fry pan over medium high heat. Brown all sides of each chicken breast and place into an oven safe dish and place in preheated oven. Remove when chicken reaches 165 degrees. 

When I first started imagining this recipe I was thinking about an appetizer recipe from this month's Real Simple magazine-- a goat cheese log rolled in cranberries and walnuts. In my initial plan I was going to make a cranberry sauce to go over the chicken and when I was actually making it decided not to do that so instead I included cranberries in the brussel sprout side dish. We also had Italian bread with the roasted garlic compote butter spread in the middle and then warmed in the oven.