Day 324: Italian Feast

During our weekly visit to Trader Joe's today, I found some beautiful basil and decided that dinner tonight would involve homemade pesto.  Pesto is so easy to make.  The following recipe makes enough to stuff four chicken breasts, but if you want to make it as a pasta sauce, you should probably double it.

Pesto:

1 packed cup of basil leaves

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1.5 T pine nuts

1/2 + 1T freshly grated parmesan cheese

1 T butter

S&P to taste

Place basil, oil, garlic, and nuts in a food processor and mix until smoothly, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time.  Add cheese and butter and mix again until all ingredients are blended.  Add S&P to taste.

Pre-heat your oven at 375 degrees.  Slice the chicken lengthwise through the middle, being careful not to cut all the way through.  You want to be able to fold the chicken back like a book.  Once folded back, coat the inside of each chicken breast with about 1T pesto.  If you'd like, lay some roasted peppers over the pesto and fold the chicken back up again.  Place the breasts in a greased baking dish and smooth about a teaspoon of pesto over the top of each breast.

Bake the chicken for 25 minutes and then sprinkle some shredded mozzarella cheese over the top of each breast.  Bake for another 5-8 minutes or until the cheese is melted.  Add another sprinkling of cheese and place the dish under the broiler until the top is browned.

Our side dish was sauteed baby broccoli (known as broccolini at Trader Joe's).  I first cooked 3 cloves of chopped garlic in olive oil over medium-low heat for a couple of minutes.  Once they were softened, I added the broccoli, a few splashes of white wine, and cranked the heat up to medium-high.  I added more wine every couple of minutes when the pan got dry to ensure that the garlic didn't burn.

The best part of tonight's dinner?  It's Sunday but there's not work tomorrow!  Enjoy your Memorial Day, everyone!