Grilled Balsamic Chicken Bruschetta

My house is fully decked out for Christmas. The tree is up and the stockings are hung. My mother’s handmade ceramics are placed high on shelves where my meddlesome cats can’t knock them down. The outside is set ablaze with thousands of blinking lights so Brent will let me keep the lights inside solid. And it’s 82 degrees outside.

Yup. Eighty-freaking-two degrees.

Yes, I know there are plenty of people in 30-something degree weather who would LOVE it to be in the eighties today, but let me tell you – it does not feel like Christmas. And snowflakes look kinda silly while you’re wearing shorts and a tank top, and sweating your ass off trying to hang up lights.

It is however, weather like this that allows us to grill pretty much 365 days a year. This is a good thing because we love grilling. Especially since my oven can heat the entire house up by itself and I refuse to turn the a/c on right now. I do many variations of this type of chicken throughout the year. It’s simple, fresh and fast. Not to mention versatile and very figure-friendly without sacrificing flavor.

So if you are up north right now, bookmark it for the warmer months. If you’re down south, maybe make it the night before you have to squeeze into that holiday dress. Like I have to… in 8 days. Not that I’m counting.

Balsamic Chicken Bruschetta

*Serves 4

(printable recipe)

Ingredients:

-          4 chicken breasts (4-6oz each)

-          3 tbls + 2 teas EVOO, divided

-          1.5 tbl balsamic vinegar

-          1.5 tea roasted garlic and herb seasoning

-          1 cup diced tomato

-          1/2 cup diced onion

-          ½ cup diced fresh mozzarella cheese

-          3 tbl fresh minced basil

-          1 tea white wine vinegar

-          S&P

Prosciutto-Wrapped Shrimp with a Chipotle Bourbon BBQ Glaze

I wish there was a shorter name for this. Good gravy.


This recipe is adapted from one I found in my BHG cookbook a while back. I remember it clearly as a Sunday night and I wanted something new and different for dinner. I have a lot of cookbooks and I rarely look at them, but this night I happened to turn to them for some inspiration. I’ve made these several times since that night and have tweaked the recipe along the way. I think I’ve finally gotten it to where I’m extremely happy with the results. These are sweet, slightly salty, and have a bit of heat to them. What more could you ask for?

Prosciutto-Wrapped Shrimp with a Chipotle Bourbon BBQ Glaze

*Makes two dozen shrimp

(printable recipe)

Ingredients:

- 2 dozen large shrimp, shells removed

- 8 slices of prosciutto, sliced thicker than normal

- 1 ½ cups bourbon BBQ sauce (I used Jack Daniel’s No 7)

- 2 chipotle in adobo peppers
- 1 teaspoon bourbon (optional)
- Scallions for garnish (optional)

- Salt and pepper

*Skewers would be helpful. Soak wood skewers in water for 30 minutes before using.

Directions:

1. Combine chipotles and BBQ sauce in a blender, food processor, or your magic bullet that someone convinced you to buy 8 years ago.

2. Remove sauce and divide in half. Add the bourbon to one half and stir together. This is your basting sauce. Use the non-liquored up BBQ for dipping.

3. Clean shrimp and remove shells. (You can leave tails on if you choose to.) Pat dry and season with salt and pepper.

4. Slice the prosciutto into 3 long strips.

Tis the Grilling Season: Grilled Chicken and Eggplant Sandwiches

Grilled Chicken and Veggie Sandwiches

This past week I had a hankering for something grilled. More specifically, I was in the mood for a sandwich that was light, tasty, and full of flavor. I am not ashamed to admit that I actually spent most of the day at work brainstorming intermittently on what would accomplish this.

By the time I got home, I had it all planned out...all I had to do was convince BD to be "in the mood" for the same. I decided on making a grilled sandwich. Grilled chicken, grilled eggplant, grilled red bell peppers with mesclun greens and some melty cheese on some good bread.

To start, I sliced the eggplant and dropped it into a Ziploc baggy with some EVOO, S&P and garlic and onion powder to marinate for a few minutes.

While the eggplant was doing it's thang, I sliced about half a red bell pepper that I had in the fridge. Then I sprinkled on some S&P and EVOO and threw it on the fire. I wanted the to peppers to retain their texture and not get too mushy so I only left them on long enough to soften slightly and get a little charred on the outside. I knew the eggplant would be more on the soft side so I wanted a variety of textures and not just a "mush"wich.

For being a professional cook, BD is much more picky than I am. For example, he hates green peppers but will eat the rest. I'll eat them all but will gravitate towards the green for everyday sort of things such as chili or in with a sausage pasta dish. The main reason being they cost about a third of the rest of the other colors of peppers. But for this meal I knew red was the way to go. A little sweeter and not as strong in flavor and it was all about balance for this sandwich.

Next I prepped my chicken. After washing the breasts and patting it dry I rubbed on McCormick's Roasted Garlic Chicken Rub. I've always found this one to give a good flavor and add some color to the chicken.

Before placing it on the grill I drizzled it with EVOO to prevent sticking.
While the chicken was waiting, I grilled my eggplant. Mid way through the grilling process I rotated each slice so I would get some nice grill marks on them. Once they cooled down a little I sliced them into fourths.

For my tasty crusty bread I chose to use to go with Ecce Panis Roasted Garlic Italian. It has whole cloves of roasted garlic studded throughout the bread with a soft, dense inside and a nice outside crust. Love this bread.

For the sandwiches we sliced a hunk out of the middle so that we would actually be able to fit the sandwich in our mouths! The bread is VERY thick. Then we spread a little butter on the bottom slice and then topped the other half with sliced Havarti cheese and popped it in the toaster oven to get all melty. Mmmm... melty cheese!
When the cheese and butter had melted we placed the mesclun (mesclun is a mix of baby greens including lettuces, arugula, spinach, radicchio and various others -it depends on the brand) on the buttered side and the roasted red peppers and eggplants on the other.

Mesclun

After the chicken was fully cooked we gave it a few minutes to cool and then sliced it on a very thin bias. I think you can see in this picture how thin it was sliced.

After that the only thing left was to mush then two halves together, slice it down the middle and eat!

You can see that I added a little salt and pepper to my greens first though!

My thoughts on this dish: I was really happy with how this little sandwich turned out. All the tastes blended together really well. I toyed with the idea of some kind of saucy topping for this but I couldn't come up with anything that sounded good. After eating it, I didn't think it really needed it between the butter, cheese and the natural moistness of the veggies and chicken. BD said it would have been better with something though.

I have a feeling that grilled sandwiches are going to be my new favorite food for the summer. Happy grilling!