Pesto Baked Chicken with Glazed Carrots and Broccoli

I’m sort of on a cooking adventure so I thought it would be fun to share what we are eating. I guess the adventure is that we are eating grain-free for three weeks and although I have gone grain and/or gluten-free before I realized I was allowing too much into my diet and so I’m am sort of detoxing my body. We will revisit the idea of including grains into a meal no more than once a day in three weeks (actually just two more since it’s been a week since we started). The idea of removing grains from our modern diet is one that stems from the consideration of Paleolithic humans and what they ate being the optimal diet for us even today, also known as the Paleo Diet.

Just to clarify, my diet is not 100% Paleo but it’s as close as I want to get to it but most of our recipes and meal ideas will be dairy- and grain-free and pretty darn close to being paleo recipes ideas. If you have any questions or suggestions about our meals please share.

Tonight I made chicken breast stuffed with pesto and baked it in the oven. I cut the chicken breasts open lenghtwise opening up a large pocket for the pesto. Be careful not to cut all the way through and avoid cutting all the way to the ends. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and any other garlicky herby mixes you have.

Next I heated a cast iron pan on high heat with it just barely covered in olive oil and stood the chicken breasts up on the backside of the cut. They had to rest against each other to do this. The idea was to brown two of the sides rapidly so it would have a richer flavor. Once the edge was browned I flipped them to the seasoned top and finished browning it (this part should take no more than 2-3 minutes). I did not brown the cut side or the bottom.

Now, turn the heat off and while holding the chicken breast with tongs, stuff them generously with pesto (here is my homemade dairy-free pesto recipe) and then lay them flat in the pan with the un-browned side down, cover and place into 375 degree oven. Cook about 20 minutes or until done.

The carrots are easy and sort of cheap rendition of something that sounds and maybe even looks fancy. In a lightly oiled pan add some carrots and cook on high heat so they get browned quickly without cooking a lot (about 3 min.) then lower heat and allow the pan to cool down a bit then add about 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. The quality of your vinegar is going to make a difference but I used an inexpensive balsamic but because I let it reduce on a low heat it took the sharpness out of the vinegar and gave it a smooth, sweet taste and a pretty color.

Steamed brocolli is so plain and usually I sometimes just season it with salt but tonight the drippings in the pan from the pesto chicken looked so yummy so I drizzled some of the oil and crumbs over the broccoli and made the taste a little more colorful without any work.

The ingredients are so simple I can hardly even take credit for this:

2 chicken breasts
6 tablespoons pesto sauce
salt & pepper
other dry herbs that sound good like rosemary, oregano….
1/2 to 1 pound of carrots
1/2 to 1 pound brocolli

That’s it! Enjoy.