Grilled Chicken Caprese

We had Deb and Al over for dinner on Saturday night.  I didn’t know what to make, but as it got closer, inspiration just took off (well, thanks, of course, to Pinterest).  First, I started by searching for a recipe that was healthy, with fresh ingredients.  With our recent trip to Europe, and especially to Italy, and it being summer, this seemed the right way to go.  Immediately, recipes popped up saying caprese and I was salivating.  With our renewed love of tomatoes, basil, garlic and mozzarella, I came across this and new it was the perfect recipe!  It looks so “gourmet”, yet it is soooooooo simple!  I made a homemade pesto, used fresh mozzarella, the rain clouds cleared so I could grill out, and we had a perfect meal.  Catherine helped me with the meal prep, and we served with corn on the cob, rice pilaf, tomato garlic crustinis and sangria.  This is definitely a summer meal I want to make over and over! 

• 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 ½ cups zesty Italian salad dressing
• ¼  cup balsamic vinegar + a few tablespoons to drizzle later
• 6 Tbsp. pesto
• 2-3 ripe tomatoes, sliced
• 12 slices fresh mozzarella cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Put chicken breasts into a large ziploc bag, pour in the Italian dressing and balsamic vinegar, and seal the bag, give everything a squish together and marinate in the fridge for a few hours.
2. Heat up grill to medium-high; grill the marinated chicken for about 6 minutes on each side (depending on the thickness of your chicken).
3. When the chicken is cooked almost all the way through, add a tablespoon of pesto onto each breast, followed by 1-2 slices of tomatoes, and 2 slices of mozzarella.
4. Reduce heat on the grill to low, close the lid and let them cook for another 4-5 minutes or until the cheese has melted a bit.
5. Drizzle the top of cheesy chicken with balsamic and remove from the grill.

The chicken, hot off the grill, before adding the drizzle of balsamic

Adapted from First Home Love Life Blog

Pesto

Pesto is just about the easiest thing to make if you have a food processor – dump all of the ingredients in the bowl, hit pulse for a couple minutes and VIOLA!   Done!  Yet… for some reason, I don’t make it more often.  I think it’s because, until recently, basil in bulk was pricey and hard to find.  Pesto was something my mom used to make – I don’t remember having it, but I know she loved it (I don’t think I was a fan when I was younger… but those taste buds of mine have matured a bit).  Now I love it too!  Until such time as our new basil plants get a little bigger, Market Basket helps me out by selling a big bag of basil and it’s not that expensive.

• ½ cup pine nuts
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 3 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan
• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. In a food processor or blender, blend together basil, nuts, garlic, and cheese.
2. Pour in oil slowly while still mixing, and then add in salt and pepper.
3. Scrape down the sides and pulse once more to make sure it's well-blended.

Adapted from Gimme Some Oven Blog

Tomato Garlic Crustini

Best summer food of 2015, courtesy of our trip to the Mediterranean back in June – Tomato Garlic Crustini.

What’s even better, we found it by chance, thanks to Fred looking up reviews on TripAdvisor for someplace to eat on our last night in Barcelona.  Not too far from the AirBNB we rented in the El Born section of Barcelona, we walked over to Melic del Gotic.  It was one of the best meals we had on our trip!  It was a small restaurant, with such a happy, fun atmosphere.  The staff and the food were amazing!

We were met outside with shots of sangria and a liqueur, Santa Fe Grosella – no idea what was in it, but YUM.  This was definitely the right place for our crew.

Our first course was this amazing food, which I could totally eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner forever.  So fresh, so good… I even absconded with the rogue piece of garlic that hadn’t been used and left on our table – a nice souvenir to use when I made it when we first got home.

The rest of the meal was fantabulous... but I'll have to write up more about this for our TripAdvisor review.

• Ciabatta bread
• Garlic cloves
• Ripe tomatoes

DIRECTIONS

1. Slice the ciabatta bread, about ¼” to ½” thickness
2. Toast or grill the slices
3. Peel a whole clove of garlic and lightly rub over the toasted bread
   (a little goes a LONG way)
4. Slice the tomato in half and rub, cut side down, over the toasted bread, letting the juices absorb into the bread; discard the outer skin of the tomato
   (depending on the size of the tomato, a half-slice may be used on more than one slice of bread)
5. Repeat with as many garlic cloves and tomatoes as you need.
6. Try to only eat one slice!

More deliciousness from our trip:

Sriracha-Glazed Grilled Chicken

The kids are home!  While they were away, I spent my nights surfing Pinterest to find things to cook once they came home.  I found this recipe that had the key ingredient of sriracha, which I have wanted to use.  This was a great recipe that I could put the sriracha on some of the chicken, but leave some of it plain, for those who didn’t want the spice (---- > Jim lol).  I ended up marinating it overnight and it was so tender and flavorful.  We made homemade rice pilaf to go with it, and it was a scrumptious meal!

• 4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• ¼ cup peanut oil
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp minced fresh garlic
• 2 tsp. ground ginger or finely minced fresh ginger root
• 3 Tbsp lime juice
  (I used the juice of one lime)
   
• 1-2 Tbsp. Sriracha Rooster Sauce
  (the sriracha is mixed into the remaining marinade used to brush on as you cook the chicken)

DIRECTIONS

1. Put chicken pieces and HALF the mixed marinade into a plastic bag.
   The original recipe calls to cut the chicken breasts into about 2” square chunks; however, I kept the chicken breasts whole.
2. Add the oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and lime juice to the plastic bag to make the marinade.
3. Marinate the chicken 6-8 hours (or overnight) in the refrigerator, turning a few times if you're home.
4. When you're ready to cook, heat the grill to a medium-high temperature.
5. Take the chicken out of the plastic bag and transfer to a plate.
6. Pour remaining marinade from the bag into a small bowl.
7. Mix the 1-2 tablespoons of sriracha sauce into the bowl of reserved marinade to make the glaze.
8. Put chicken breasts or kabobs on the grill and brush generously with the sriracha glaze.
9. Turn chicken about every 4 minutes and brush with glaze each time, cooking the kabobs until the chicken is nicely browned and firm (but not hard) to the touch (actual cooking time will depend on the thickness of the chicken pieces and how hot your grill is, but estimated time is about 15-18 minutes).

Adapted from Kalyn’s Kitchen