Whip It Up: Taking Recipes on Test Drives Since 2008: Recipe #1

So today I was trying to figure our how to use what we had in the house to make dinner. I knew we had some chicken breasts in the freezer, the basil in the garden was ready to be cut/used and there were 2 tomatoes left from the weekend that needed to be eaten pronto. So I went onto chow.com and typed in these three (actually, I just put in chicken and basil) ingredients and this is the recipe that I got:

Chicken breasts w/ tomato basil and Gorgonzola & White wine sauce 2 tbs Butter
1 tbs Extra virgin olive oil
4 chicken breast steaks (skin off bone out)
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup Chicken Stock
1-2 tbs Cream
1 medium Shallot finely chopped
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1/2 cup basil (fine chiffonade)
2 tomatoes medium dice
1/4 cup Gorgonzola cheese

INSTRUCTIONS
1. First, melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed skillet on high heat and add the olive oil until the butter and oil are bubbling.
2. clean the chicken and season with salt and pepper. add chicken to pan and sear both sides until outside is golden brown.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and transfer the chicken to a glass baking dish and bake for 25-30 min.
4. while the chicken is baking add the white wine and chicken stock to the pan to deglaze the pan while whisking the bits off of the bottom. add the cream and reduce for about 5 min.
5. one reduced add the garlic and shallots to the pan and reduce for a few more min. finish the sauce with a little butter and adjust with seasonings.
6. once the chicken is cooked through top with sauce and add the tomatoes, basil and Gorgonzola (in that order) on top. serve with bread or salad and enjoy!

We had everything but the Gorgonzola on hand, so that was a super bonus. I decided to serve this with crusty bread - definitely recommended.

Needless to say, when plated on the platter, husband's first words were "wow this looks really grown up," he went on to say, "this would be worth ordering in a restaurant...they might make this on Top Chef...this is the best meal you have ever made in this house...you should make this for guests...delicious!" and so on... We both loved this meal and I would make it again in a heartbeat. I know it doesn't look like much or anything special, but I think that is what made it so good. It was so unexpected.

So for some of the things needed in Whip It Up:

1) Was the recipe easy to follow - very! It was super easy - although I would always put preheating the oven first.

2) Did the dish taste good - it was awesome! husband said he can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like it, even really picky eaters

3) Would I make it again - tomorrow if I could

On a side note...modifications....the pan was too hot when I went to deglaze it so I lost a lot of liquid. I also did this to early so I had to put the pan off the heat and reheated it closer to when the chicken was actually ready (my chcken took 35 min but I don't think it was defrosted all the way yet). Because of this I added a splash more wine and chicken stock. I still would have loved even more sauce b/c it rocked. Another one was that I didn't measure my Gorgonzola or basil when adding it to the top. It just made it look pretty and taste even yummier. Husband and I also love basil so we used a lot. Finally, I only used 3 chicken breasts (I used the individually frozen kind) and since they were big I thought I would be OK. Two would have been plenty and there was plenty of stuff for 4 chicken breasts had I made that many. Again though, the sauce was awesome so I would have loved more of that.

Needless to say, a great start to Whip It Up. I don't think anything can compare to it though...

In the picture are also my zucchini that I made after watching the today show this morning. They too were good, but nothing compared to the chicken.