Bobby Flay Everyday!: Green Chili & Red Pepper Stuffed Chicken

Welcome to Bobby Flay Everyday!

I am not an expert. I have never even taken a class. I have no formal training - but I love to grill. I love the food off the grill and I just like the idea, the fun and the relaxation of grilling. So naturally Bobby Flay is a hero. I have his books, I watch his shows and I try out his recipes. So my idea is to grill one of Bobby's grilling recommendations everyday and see how it goes. Bobby Flay Everyday!

The idea to grill and blog is not original. Julie Powell wrote a blog that became a book and then a movie when she cooked all 524 recipes from Julia Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But this is not French Cooking - this is backyard, after work, tailgate, American male grilling. I grill outside in a man-cave in every kind of weather. There is no "grilling season" for me - its everyday, year-round. We will skip around through Bobby's books and TV shows and grill what we like. But grilling is more than food, its an experience - so we will also report on what music we listened to or what ball game was on while we were grilling. We will keep track of what we were drinking during the grilling and later with the food. I'll try to figure what went wrong when we fall short of Bobby's perfection and pass on any tips I know about or discover along the way. Maybe it will give others some ideas as well.

The photo is of me and two of my brother-in-laws roasting the Thanksgiving turkey on the grill last year. That's me on the far right. In real life I am a college professor and pilot. I have written 12 books, but they were all about flying - here we write about grilling. We write about Bobby Flay Everyday!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Green Chili & Red Pepper Stuffed Chicken

You gotta try this one! Its Grilled Chicken Breasts stuffed with Cheese and Green Chili-Cilantro sauce from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life page 124. I started by chopping up poblano chilies, a red onion and two garlic cloves, then added lime juice, honey, olive oil, kosher salt and ground pepper into a processor. I added cilantro after the entire mixture was blended into a chucky sauce. I put the sauce aside and then went to work on the stuffing. It was mozzarella and feta cheese, with chopped black olives, roasted and chopped red peppers, thyme, and olive oil. When I was at the store, I found some thin sliced chicken breasts - about a 1/4 inche at their thickest point. The thin chicken slices were the base where I spooned on the stuffing. Then I rolled up the chicken with the stuffing inside, tieing it off with a wire. It looked like a chicken canoli! I grilled the rolled chicken first with direct heat to get the outside char and later with indirect heat to bake the chicken through. Once on the plate, I sliced it across the middle and spooned on the Poblano-Cilantro sauce. Yes it was spicy - but the lime juice and honey balanced the poblanos, onions and cilantro. Like I said, you gotta try this one!

What was on? Sugarland. The group that goes by the name Sugarland is Jennifer Nettles and some other guy. I am sure that "the other guy" is really good, but lets face it - this group is nowhere without Nettles. I am not a huge country music fan -even after growing up in Nashville, but I know what I like no matter what the label. Sugarland is good stuff and great in concert too. We saw them at last summer's CMA festival. Check then out at http://www.sugarlandmusic.com/
Try to figure out who the other guy is and ask yourself - did this guy make some kind of deal with the devil to be on the same stage with Jennifer Nettles?