Day 196-- Bacon-Wrapped Basil Stuffed Chicken Breasts recipe

Prologue: 

When it comes to potlucks, welcome the chaos, take some shots, cook something new, and watch it turn into a fabulous night. 

Last night's potluck started on walk to the farmer's market when me and my bf's roommates got to talking about the successful Halloween potluck we had in October and how we should have one for Christmas.  Somehow the neighborhood heard the news, and we almost had a too many people and not enough food.  And while there was a few minutes of stress about feeding the entire town, I've found that it's always better to have more friends over than less friends over.

And so we poured some sake shots, laughed, got out our chicken, spinach, and pasta, and thus started a truly wonderful night of good food and 90s house music.

Bacon-Wrapped Basil Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Prep time: about 15 minutes

Cook time: about 40 minutes (might be faster at higher temperature)

Total time: 55 minutes

Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 medium skinless, boneless chicken breasts

3 oz-ish cream cheese

8 stripes of high quality bacon

8 basil leaves (a few more if you want garnish)

3 tbsp olive oil

a few dashes of rosemary

salt and pepper

*optional 4 large tomatoes

Directions

1.) Wash and pat dry your chicken breasts and place them on a cutting board.  Using a very sharp small knife cut a slit into the thickest part of each chicken breast.  Rotate the knife inside of the chicken and use your fingers to create a nice pocket inside of the breast.  Repeat for each breast.

2.) Stuff each pocket with a healthy chunk of cream cheese and two basil leaves.  Seal up the pocket the best you can with your fingers.

3.) Tightly wrap two slices of bacon around each breasts, tucking in any loose ends.  Season with salt, pepper, and rosemary.

4.) Pull out a frying pan and heat up to medium heat.  Drizzle in a tbsp of olive oil.  Brown each breast until the bacon is turning that reddish/brown cooked color and the breast skin has that golden singe.

5.) Meanwhile slice up the tomatoes into large slices and preheat the oven 350 degrees. Once the breasts are all browned, get out a shallow baking dish an place the breasts next to each other with the tomato slices along the sides.  Sprinkle some salt and pepper onto the tomatoes.  Drizzle the rest of the olive oil onto the breasts and tomatoes.

6.) Cook the breasts at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  Flip over and cook for another 15-20 minutes.  Take out of the oven and garnish with some torn up pieces of basil if you so desire (I always desire basil). Done!

Review:

Absolutely delicious!  Honestly the best chicken I've ever made, and the basil with the cream cheese was just enough to give that sweet flavor to battle with the salty bacon coat.  Served at our potluck with Spanakopita, cold feta pasta primavera, a few Manhattans, and a round of Apples to Apples.  Cheers!