Royal Foodie Joust-September 2007

Every month, Jenn from the Leftover Queen hosts The Royal Foodie Joust. Each contestant is given three ingredients they must use to create a recipe that is competition-worthy for the title of Royal Foodie Joust Winner. This month's Royal Foodie Joust ingredients are chipotle, zucchini and buttermilk, as chosen by August 1, 2007's winnder marye from Apron Strings and Simmering Things. I was a bit daunted by this challenge, there were so many possiblities, and I wanted my creation to be creative, different, and most of all, tasty!

I've never cooked with chipotle before, but after this challenge, I feel I'll be adding this to my cooking repertoire for Latin foods from now on. I loved the smoky flavor, with the nice lip-smacking bite it leaves in your mouth.

I decided to go with stuffed chicken breasts, seeing as how I've never tried stuffing chicken breasts before, but thought it would really bring out the zucchini flavors. So, without further ado, here's my recipe for Zucchini Stuffed Chicken Breasts with a Buttermilk Chipotle Sauce:

For the chicken:
-4 skinless chicken breasts, halved
-1 zucchini, sliced thin
-1/2 cup sliced cheddar
-salt and pepper
-toothpicks to hold the breast together, should you need it

For the sauce:
-1 eight oz can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
-1/2 cup buttermilk
-4 oz. plain yogurt
-salt and pepper

Instructions: Preheat oven to 375F. In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine the ingredients for the sauce. I added about a half tablespoon of lime juice, but you can opt out of that, I'm just a freak about lime. Line a 13" x 9" pan with tin foil. Cut a slit in the center of each chicken breast half and stuff it with your desired amount of cheese and zucchini (I layered mine so I had two pieces each of the zucchini and cheese). I had some extra zucchini leftover, and knew I'd be using toothpicks to hold them together while they cooked, so I topped each breast half with a slice of zucchini and stuck the toothpick through that. Continue until each breast half is complete and place them in the lined pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the breasts are cooked through. Once they're done, pour the chipotle sauce over them.

I thought these turned out really, really well. The chipotle was far too spicy for me, so I ended up scraping the actual pepper pieces off, but kept the red sauce. My husband LOVED them, he's the king of all things spicy-hot. He even said to me, "Look how much you made me sweat... that's a good thing!" My little brother loved how they looked when they were plated, but was not a fan of the chipotle (spicy foods upset his stomach), but he was more than happy with the chicken without the sauce. I was especially happy that these made enough for me to bring for dinner tomorrow night when I stand duty.

I'll be posting the link for you to vote for yours truly after September 1st, which is when voting is available. I hope I get your vote! Thanks!

~Mehgan~