Mmmmm, Monterey Chicken

If you've read my blog very much, you know I cook a lot of chicken.  Grilled, baked, fried, slow cooked -- if it's chicken, we'll eat it.  Yesterday, I browsed my Pinterest food board looking for something new to prepare for dinner.  And what do you suppose appealed to me?  Yep, chicken.  I came across a Monterey Chicken photo I had pinned a year ago and never tried.  I clicked through to the blog where it originally appeared, All Things Simple: Inspiration for a Simple Life, for the recipe.

Grilled and ready to pop in the oven to melt the cheese.  I used KC Masterpiece Original barbecue sauce.  I think next time I'd like to try a more smoky flavored sauce.

A hit!  It's marinated and grilled, then topped and baked.  It's easy to prepare and makes a nice presentation (once it's taken off the cookie sheet!).  Click here for the link to the original recipe on All Things Simple by Kim McCrary.  I followed her recipe pretty closely.  As Kim suggests, I marinated the chicken for about a half hour prior to grilling.  The only changes I made were:  She used Montreal Steak Seasoning in her marinade, which I replaced with Montreal Chicken Seasoning.  I also used a smaller can (10 oz.) of Rotel tomatoes and I had one additional chicken breast. Somehow, my chicken turned out just as tomato-y as hers appear in her photo.   I probably also upped the amount of cheese because, well, I just love cheese and it's hard to overdo yummy melted cheese.  I used sharp cheddar instead of colby with the monterey jack just because I didn't have any colby on hand.  The final change I made was to cook and crumble a nice smoky bacon rather than use bacon bits.  One piece of bacon per chicken breast seemed adequate.

After baking, the cheese is all melty goodness.  

We completed the meal with a mixed greens salad and some corn on the cob.  The final flourish was the white wine we got on our trip to Cedarburg, Settlement Gold.  It was delicious.  Sweet with a slight apple flavor.  A very good, inexpensive wine. 

Nigella's Chicken Schnitzel

I once heard an interview with Michael Caine on NPR where he recalled growing up with a somewhat opinionated and unenlightened father.  His father apparently refused to eat chicken as it was not a manly meat.  Whether it is manly or not, we eat a fair amount of chicken at our house, so I'm always looking for new ways to prepare it.  The other day, I stumbled on a recipe from Nigella Lawson for chicken schnitzel with bacon and white wine.

It's not really a proper schnitzel, but it did sound interesting, so I gave it a try.

The sauce looks mostly like bacon grease here, but there is wine in there!

The chicken was flavorful. I used a hickory smoked bacon for a smoky flavor and some Yellowtail Moscato, which added a touch of sweetness.   I also added a sprinkling of salt and pepper, which the recipe did not include.  The chicken itself was a little thick.  I had cut the breasts in half, but I think next time (if I am not too lazy) I will go the extra step and pound them into very thin pieces.

If you aren't afraid of unmanly meat, you can find the recipe on Nigella Lawson's website.