Chicken Caprese

I often see recipes in magazines, on television or on blogs which look really good and I think I'll give them a try myself but in reality, I'm not very adventurous in the kitchen so I end up sticking with things I know. One blog I read regularly which has some wonderful recipes is The Low Carb Diabetic. Now I'm not a diabetic and I don't follow a low carb diet but the recipes which Jan posts are always very tempting and look delicious, and of course, you can add carbs if you want to.

I remember Jan posting a Chicken Caprese recipe quite a while ago now. I popped the post into my favourites and as usual, there it languished, that was until she mentioned the recipe again last week which gave me a nudge. It's such an easy recipe so I don't know why I hadn't got round to trying it. Anyway, I thought it was about time I did so I gave it a go.

The recipe calls for boneless, skinless chicken thighs but I had some chicken breasts in the freezer so I thought I'd use those instead. I just adjusted the cooking time as the breasts were much bigger than thighs would have been. I started off by sprinkling the chicken with salt and pepper and then searing them in a frying pan in a little olive oil.

They were then arranged in a glass baking dish, covered in foil and baked in the oven for about twenty minutes. This stage isn't included in the recipe but as the breasts were quite large, it ensured that they were cooked through, I'd have missed out this stage had I been using thighs.

After twenty minutes, I removed the foil, topped each breast with mozzarella and slices of tomato and then returned to the oven uncovered. After a further thirty minutes I removed them from the oven. The cheese was melted and the chicken thoroughly cooked through.

I popped them under the grill for about three minutes to brown the top of the cheese then sprinkled them with fresh basil.

Here they are all plated up, served with new potatoes which have been drizzled with butter, and green beans.

It's such a simple recipe but tastes absolutely delicious and I can see it becoming a regular favourite. I don't often buy tomatoes from the supermarket, they just don't seem to have any taste eaten raw when you compare them to home grown tomatoes, but cooked is another matter, the tangy tomatoey taste mixed with the cheese and chicken is yummy and though Mick and Eleanor don't usually eat tomatoes at all, they actually cleared their plates. We all enjoyed it very much indeed. If you'd like to have a go yourself, and I can definitely recommend you do, you'll find the recipe on Jan's Chicken Caprese ... Mama Mia It Sure Tastes Great! post. Thank you, Jan, for the inspiration.