Grilled Chicken and Artichokes

Here’s another easy-peasy one.

Chicken breasts, artichoke, and herb & garlic  marinade.

Put the chicken and marinade in a plastic baggie.  Then clean the artichoke, cut in half, and boil for about 40 minutes or until tender.

Then toss the chicken and artichokes into the grill pan (or onto a grill if you have one).  Cook until chicken is done.

Very very good.  And blood sugar was only 83!

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Artichoke Heart & Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken

Today we start at the grocery store, where I found one (and only one) company that makes a line of sugar free salad dressings.  This is wonderful news.  I love salad dressing. (I’m sure there are other sugar free dressings in the world, just not in my local store.)

Maple Grove Farms of Vermont, I now love you.  Their website says they also have a dijon flavor that wasn’t in my local grocery store.  I may have to buy this online.  And a sugar free maple (flavored) syrup.  And if the syrup is anything like their salad dressing, it will taste wonderful.

Now, on to checking labels.  I’m sure everyone else out there already knew the importance of checking labels before you buy things, but this was not something I’d ever worried about before.  I’d find the item I want, pick up the cheapest brand, and be on my way.  It worked for me.  Well, you know, kind of.  But now I’ve checked more labels in the past few days than I have in my entire life.

The can on the left has 8 grams of sugar in it.  The jar on the right has none.  The can was found in the canned foods section, where one would normally look for this type of thing.  The jar was in the international foods aisle and was actually slightly cheaper.  Without reading the labels I probably would have bought the canned one.  In fact I almost did, because I assumed that because the others were marinated that they would contain more sugar than the non-marinated ones.  I was wrong.  I can admit this.  On occasion.  Don’t get too used to it.

So home with our ingredients. The amounts aren’t particularly important, adjust them to make the size meal you want.  What I used will feed two.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts – I got thin cut ones, but regular ones would be fine as well.

1 jar artichoke hearts

Goat cheese – feta would work as well.  Mozzarella probably would too.

Green onions

The artichoke hearts were quartered already, but I wanted them a bit smaller.  Since I’m too lazy to try to cut them regularly, I pulled out my handy dandy Slap Chop!

I chopped up about half the artichoke hearts and tossed them in a bowl.  Next I cut up a couple of the green onions.

I tossed them in the bowl with the artichoke hearts and added a handful or so of the goat cheese.

Mixed these together and then used this to stuff the chicken.  Since I was using thin cut chicken, I laid the chicken out, put the mixture on top and then rolled two of the sides together, securing them with a toothpick.  If you’re using regular chicken breasts, cut one side open and stuff the mixture inside.  Then, place your chicken in a baking dish.

Aren’t you glad I included that up close shot of raw chicken to show you what it should look like?  Doesn’t that raw chicken look delicious?  Bleh.  Anyway, I had the oven preheated to 350 F, so I covered the chicken with foil and put it in for 35 minutes.

While that was baking, I started on my salad.  I drained the liquid from the rest of the artichoke hearts and put them in my salad bowl.  Then I chopped some tomatoes, into fairly large pieces.

I also took half a can of black olives and cut them in half and chopped a few more green onions.  I mixed the tomatoes, onions, olives, and more goat cheese with my artichoke hearts.  Then I dressed them with my wonderful new bottle of …

Maple Grove Farms of Vermont Sugar Free Italian Balsamic Dressing!!!  Yum.  I mixed all this together into a wonderful summer salad.  (What do you mean it’s not summer?  It sure was outside my house today!)

It may not look fabulous, but it most definitely was.

Finally the chicken was done!  (I pulled it out at 34 minutes cause I was hungry.  It did it no harm.)

The verdict?

WONDERFUL.  SO WONDERFUL IT REQUIRED ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.  THAT’S PRETTY WONDERFUL.  The cheese in the chicken melted to create a magnificent creaminess, with just the right amout of flavor from the artichokes and onions.  The chicken itself was wonderfully moist.  The salad was light and fresh tasting, with just the right amounts of saltiness and sweetness.  This meal is going right into my regular rotation of meals.  That salad I could probably eat every day.  (And I might have to in a few months when I have a garden full of tomatoes!)  You should all try this for yourself, I guarantee you’ll love it.  Just take the toothpicks out of the chicken before you eat it.

And two hours after dinner my sugar was 97.  I don’t know how long the doctor will have me monitoring my sugar, for now it’s just a week.  But whenever he has me checking, I’ll let you know how the meal in question affects it.

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