Baked Basil Chicken & Caprese Quinoa

This has been a great week!!  It's been busy, but totally worth it!!  One cool thing is that Dose Coffee downtown on Ross Street actually served one of my blog recipes yesterday as their  lunch specials!!  I ate it and it was delicious - couldn't have cooked it any better myself!!  If you're downtown, head in (they're on the top floor of Sunworks) for some of their delicious coffee, lunches or pastries - they are even open on Sundays, which is a complete shocker for this damn town, but hopefully their success will show the other businesses downtown that it's worth it to open their doors on Sundays - yeah! Let's rock out downtown Red Deer!!!

Sadly, Scotties is over tomorrow :(   Erin and I have met lots of fun new (ha ha  -old) friends and we've realized that we are both pretty awesome ambassodors of Red Deer!!  On Wednesday night, we enjoyed the Italian BLT's and was left with some basil spread; I saved it and used it for dinner on Thursday - check it out:

Baked Basil Chicken & Caprese Quinoa
Basil Chicken Ingredients:
4 organic chicken breasts
3-4 tbsp basil spread (leftover from the Italian BLT's)
non-stick cooking spray

Caprese Quinoa Ingredients:
3/4 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cup water
1/2 cup bocconcin, shredded or chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil, sliced thin into ribbons
2 roma tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
fresh cracked salt & pepper

Method:
In a small pot, combine the water and quinoa and bring to a boil over high heat.  Lower heat, cover and simmer for about 18 minutes, until all of the water is absorbed.  Remove from heat, get rid of the lid, fluff with a fork and leave to "cool" slightly.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400degrees.  Spray a  baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.  Arrange the chicken breasts in the dish, then baste with the basil spread.   Chuck in the oven for about 25 minutes. 

While the chicken & quinoa are cooking, chop the romas, bocconcini and basil.  Put ingredients in a medium sized bowl and set aside. 

In a small bowl, whisk together the balsamic & olive oil; pour over the ingredients and stir.  I let the quinoa cool off so it was warm, but not steaming like crazy anymore - stir it into the ingredients and you're good to go!  This salad tastes great warm or cold.

Once the chicken is out of the oven, thinly slice and serve atop a bed of the quinoa!  Yummy!

Before I sign off for today, I just wanted to quickly say how fun it's been to be part of Scotties this year; we've met so many new buds and learnt a lot about the crazy insider world of Curling!!  The pins, the beers, the mascots, the super fans and best of all - all the new pals!  Below is a picture of us with a new pal "Dave" and he's an avid volunteer (like us) and a blogger too!!!  Check out Dave's Blog which chronicles his adventures in volunteering!!

Shout out to our new friend Dave!!