goat cheese & basil chicken

As it was personal training night for the boyfriend, it was another night for me to cook dinner. He said he wanted something relatively healthy and with chicken, so I decided upon this recipe from my Ina Garten cookbook. I've been making an effort lately to use my cookbooks more often even though the internet and SK and allrecipes are great resources.

This turned out really well. It was super easy to make, quick in terms of time spent on it (though it does have 40 minutes of cooking time), and tasted really good. We love goat cheese, so that worked out really well. I decided to make a little couscous salad to go with it, and I think that it paired well together. I got a few compliments on it, and since that always warms my little heart to hear I've made someone something delicious, I was a happy camper.

*I'm writing down my adjusted recipe. This was 2 breasts - he ate all of his but I had about 1/2-2/3 of mine.

2 chicken breasts [she says skin-on, boneless, but HEB doesn't sell that anymore. I bought the split breast with the bone-in and skin and then just cut the breast away from the bone. Also, it was considerably cheaper for much more meat than boneless, skinless.]
2 oz herb and garlic goat cheese [make sure you get a creamy kind]
2 fresh basil leaves
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375.

Loosen the skin from the breast, leaving one side attached. Cut the goat cheese into slices and place a few plus a large basil leaf under the skin of each chicken breast. Pull the skin over as much of the meat as possible so that it doesn't dry out.

Rub each piece with olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Bake chicken for 35-40 minutes, until skin is lightly browned and chicken is just cooked through. [When I checked with my boyfriend after 40 minutes, he had me turn the oven up to 450 for another 5 minutes and it turned out really well. This helped get the skin a bit more crispy, and if I'm going to eat it, I definitely want it to be crispy.]



1/2 cup uncooked couscous [buy it in bulk from the grocery store for cheap!]
3/4 cup boiling water
Mix couscous and water and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

4 campari tomatoes [between cherry and vine tomato size, but whatever works for you]
2 leaves fresh basil
1 oz herb and garlic goat cheese
1/2 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar [I didn't actually measure]
2 tbsp olive oil [I didn't actually measure]
salt and pepper

Cut the tomatoes and julienne the basil. I mixed the balsamic, olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper together to make a salad dressing [a simple one I learned from a roommate in Bulgaria]. Mix tomatoes, basil, goat cheese, and dressing into couscous. Serve on the side of the roasted chicken. 

rainbow trout + asparagus + couscous

We made dinner the other night and, yet again, it was super delicious. We didn't use any recipes this time, but everything still came out really well. I LOVED the asparagus, and I think I would seriously forego most cookies to eat more of these asparagus. It's probably my favorite green vegetable, and adding cheese just seals the deal.

Rainbow Trout
2 filets rainbow trout
1 lemon
chopped walnuts
spices
olive oil
aluminum foil

I wasn't in charge of the rainbow trout, but I think I have a decent idea of what he did. The fish got olive oil, salt, pepper, dill, probably some other spices, chopped walnuts, and some lemon zest and juice. We put it in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, I believe, until it was flaky.

Parmesan Asparagus
I made these, so I'm a slightly more reliable source for their recipe. I broke off the bottom of the asparagus spears and then put them in a bowl to mix with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some chopped garlic. I spread them on aluminum foil on a cooking sheet and then drizzled the rest of the mixture over it. I grated some parmesan cheese on top. That went in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. How long you cook this for really just depends on what texture you prefer.

Walnut Parsley Couscous
This isn't really a recipe, but I'll still tell you how it went. We made couscous (boil water, mix couscous and water in bowl, cover, and wait 5 minutes) and then mixed in some chopped parsley and walnuts (and salt because otherwise it doesn't taste like anything). 

parmesean chicken couscous

I didn't use a recipe for this! Yes, it isn't complicated, but I still have been pretty reliant on recipes and hesitant to shy away from it. I have made a lemon chicken recipe a couple times lately, so I guess I was feeling like I had a sense of what to do and then was ready to mix it up a little. I saw that I had one chicken breast left over in the fridge, a few basic ingredients, and midway through cooking I remembered that I wouldn't want chicken alone, and so I decided that couscous was a good save since pasta would take too long.

1 chicken breast
1/2 lemon juice
1/4 cup white wine
1 pat butter
1 tbsp half and half
1/3 cup dry couscous
1-2 tbsp grated parmesean

I put the butter and squeezed the lemon juice into the pan to heat up. Once it was melted, I mixed it up, and then I put my chicken breast in. I poured in about a 1/4-1/2 cup of wine and about a tbsp of half and half. I swished it around the pan to mix it up and coat the chicken in it. I waited until the chicken was cooked pretty well on one side before flipping it, probably about 4-5 minutes. Then I flipped it over and mixed it around with the sauce, which was starting to cook off a bit but there was enough under the chicken to keep it from burning.

While the chicken was cooking, I put some water on to boil in my electric water heater (I don't have a coffee maker or microwave, which drives my mother crazy, even though she doesn't live here, so she insisted that I at least have this). Once the water was boiling, I mixed 1/2 cup of water with 1/3 cup of couscous and some salt. I covered the couscous and let it sit for about 5 minutes before fluffing it.

Once the chicken and couscous were done, I put the couscous in a bowl, sliced the chicken on top, poured in any of the remaining sauce from the pan, and grated some parmesean on top. I mixed it all together, and I was a very happy camper with my lunch.

Nutritional information (for 1 cup couscous and 1 chicken breast):
513 calories
11g total fat
49g carbs
44g protein
*note: I wasn't exactly sure how big my chicken breast was, so I used an entry for 3.5 oz