Sometimes you want to roast a whole chicken, but many times you do not. I’ll be honest that I hadn’t thought of treating bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts like you would a whole roast chicken, but it makes sense. This recipe, from The Kitchn, does just that with goat cheese, lemon and garlic, plus the added bonus of stuffing the chicken breast full of the goat cheese mixture.

It’s a simple enough recipe, starting out with creating a mixture of goat cheese, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic and fresh parsley. The original recipe calls for fresh, green garlic, which I saw but did not pick up on my outing to the farmstands last weekend, so I substituted a couple of cloves of regular garlic.

Mix the stuffing up well. I t was good enough to eat straight up on a cracker, but it’s going on to better things.

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A small amount of the goat cheese mixture gets rubbed beneath the skin of the chicken breast, and a larger amount gets stuffed into a 3-inch slit cut into the meatiest side of the chicken breast. As you can see, I managed to get got goat cheese mixture all over the chicken, which is fine. Then they get rubbed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and into the oven they go!

And that’s it. After about 30 minutes the skin becomes brown and crispy, and the goat cheese is melty and delicious. We served ours with mashed potatoes and a salad. Not only did the skin on the chicken breasts help keep them moist, the stuffing within them contributed to making them some of the moistest and most flavorful chicken breasts I’ve ever made.

Goat Cheese Stuffed Roast Chicken Breasts (courtesy of The Kitchn)

Ingredients

• 4 ounces goat cheese
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 4 teaspoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoon chopped parsley
• 2 cloves of regular garlic
• 4 medium bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF
2. In a small bowl, mix goat cheese, lemon zest, juice, parsley and garlic until well blended.
3. Loosen the skin on the chicken breasts but leave it attached at the edges. Cut a deep, 3-inch long slit in the meatier side of the chicken breast.
4. Divide the goat cheese mixture into four portions. Stuff each chicken breast full of one portion of the mixture, spreading some between the skin and the chicken.
5. Rub the chicken breasts with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place on a lined baking sheet and roast for about 30 minutes, or until the skin is brown.

A few weeks ago we bought a couple of steaks from a butcher that stocks some unusual and exotic meats. We decided on two New York Strip cuts, one of bison and one of elk. This past weekend we finally got a grill to cook them on.

I rubbed each steak with a different spice mix that I picked up at the Spice House in Chicago the last time I was there. The bison got the Old World Central Street Seasoning, and the elk got the Hyde Park Seasoning.

To go along with the steak, we grilled corn cobs in their husks and roasted a mix of red potatoes and radishes…

I tossed them with some olive oil, basil, oregano, paprika and salt and pepper, and roasted them at 350ºF for 45 minutes.

A successful first grill of the season. The meat was juicy, flavorful and tender. The elk and the bison were distinct, but in a way that is not really describable. They were both very tasty, though.