Mozzarella, Prosciutto & Pesto Walk Into A Chicken Breast...

When we're trying to figure out what to cook for dinner, it sometimes feels like an episode of Chopped.  We rack our brains to determine what's in the fridge/pantry, what items may be on the verge of going bad and what needs to be used soon, and then figure out how to make the components all work together.  Sometimes you gotta improvise! That's exactly how dinner came together the other night.

We had some frozen chicken breasts, prosciutto and a bag of arugula left over from our grilled cheeses, as well as some fresh mozzarella from our pasta.  So we decided to stuff the chicken with prosciutto and mozzarella, and top it with an arugula pesto.

So let's start with the pesto.  As with any pesto, no matter what herb/green you use, you want to process all the dry ingredients before adding in your oil.  Since we had arugula on hand, we used that, along with a bit of fresh parsley, snipped from our plant.  Toss in a couple cloves of garlic, toasted pine nuts, parmesan cheese and a few sun-dried tomatoes.  The acidity of the sun-dried tomatoes really helped to balance out the spiciness of the arugula.

Just pop it all into a food processor and blend it all up.  Add some salt and pepper to taste, and then drizzle in your olive oil until it reaches your preferred consistency.  We didn't want it too thick and chunky, or too oily, so add the olive oil with caution.

Now for the chicken.  Our chicken breasts weren't very thick, so it was easiest to just pound them out into an even thickness.  We seasoned the insides with salt, pepper, red chili flake, and a bit of dried basil.

Lay your prosciutto and slices of mozzarella on one half of the chicken.  Then just fold the other side of the chicken breast over on top, forming a sandwich.  Secure the openings with a couple toothpicks, and then season the outside of your chicken.  Since we were throwing the chickens on the grill, we made sure to soak the toothpicks in some water so they wouldn't catch fire on the grill.

Once you've got all your chickens stuffed, seasoned, and toothpicked, you can throw 'em on the grill.  Ours took about 10 minutes per side to cook through, but the cooking time will depend on the thickness of your chickens.

When your chickens are cooked through, just pull the toothpicks out, top with your pesto, and serve!

Osteria di Kara

During college I was able to study abroad and spend a semester in Venice.  I was spoiled, living in a huge house on the Grand Canal, next to the Guggenheim Museum.  We had a little produce shop a few doors down from our house, run by Bruno, an Italian Mr. Rogers, who would wake up before the crack of dawn to gather produce off the boats.  You were always better off visiting Bruno in the morning because you never knew if he was going to reopen in the afternoons.

It was here that I really first started cooking for myself.  I couldn't just go out to eat every night, and there wasn't a cafeteria to rely on.  One of the dishes I learned to make during this semester was an Italian flag pasta.  Our Italian professor, Paolo, came over one night with his friend, Alex, and taught us how to make it, though I think Alex may have just drank wine while we all cooked!

It's really simple, and a great summer dish when tomatoes are in season.  Start by scoring the bottoms of your tomatoes and blanching them in hot water for about 90 seconds.  You'll see the skin start to peel away, and that's when you want to pull them out of the water.  Once they're cool enough to handle, peel the skin off.  It should come off quite easily.  You'll want to reserve the skin so you can squeeze the juice out of them for your sauce.

Then just dice up your tomatoes into whatever size chunks you like.  Just make sure to save all the juices and add them to your sauce.  

To the tomatoes, you'll add chopped garlic, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, some dried Italian seasoning, red chili flake, and the secret ingredient...a splash of soy sauce!

Once your pasta is ready, toss it into the bowl and let the hot pasta "cook" your sauce.  You'll also want to add a bit of the starchy pasta water to help your sauce stick to the pasta.  Top with some parmesan cheese, and you're good to go!

It's quick, tasty, and only requires turning on 1 burner.  So on those hot summer days, you won't be heating up the kitchen too much.

Pesto Change-O!

Tonight we thought we'd try something different, and put a twist on your traditional pesto.  I've seen recipes for pestos made with arugula or parsley instead of basil, and walnuts instead of pinenuts, so why not try making a pesto out of all those creasy greens we have?

We pulled all of the leaves from the stems and threw them in the food processor with some garlic, toasted pinenuts, and parmesan cheese.  Once it was pureed, we streamed in some olive oil.  With a bit of roasted garlic salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, the pesto came together quite nicely.

 

We let all flavors in the pesto mix and mingle together while we put the chicken involtini together.  We started with 2 chicken breasts that we pounded out, then seasoned with salt and pepper.  Inside we put some slices of mozzarella and some sun-dried tomatoes.  Then we rolled up the chicken so everything was tucked away inside, and used some skewers to hold them all together.  The chicken went into the oven to cook for about 20 minutes.

Next, it was time to prepare the turnips.  The last times we got turnips in the share, we made a puree, so we wanted to do something a little different this time.  We found this recipe for roasted turnips with a mustard vinaigrette, and thought we'd give it a shot.  So we chunked up the turnips, tossed them in a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and threw them into the oven (with the chicken) for about 15 minutes, until they were roasty, toasty, golden brown.

The vinaigrette was really simple to whisk together; a little whole grain mustard, a little white wine vinegar, a scallion, some parsley, and a little oil.  Once the turnips had cooled, we tossed them in the vinaigrette, and sprinkled a little fresh parsley on top.

There was a wide variety of flavors on the plate.  There was a nice contrast between the the herb-y pesto, the acidity from the sun-dried tomatoes, the rich mozzarella, and the slight sour tang of the turnips and mustard.

But we didn't stop there!  While we ate dinner, we let our dessert bake.  That's right, folks.  We made dessert!  But don't be fooled...it wasn't a multi-layer cake, or anything fancy like that.  We sliced up the 2 gold rush apples we had, and covered them in pecans, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger and brown sugar.  For the topping, we smashed together some oats, brown sugar, butter, and chopped pecans.  We covered the apples with the oat crumble, and sprinkled a little cinnamon and sugar on top to kind of brulee the top.

By the time we were done eating dinner, the crumble/crisp was just about done.  I don't like my dessert cloyingly sweet, or my fruit pies/crisps/crumbles extra syrup-y, and I want my fruit to still have some bite to them, so this was a perfect dessert.