Boobie chicken!

I like to cook, which is a good thing, because I live with two males who really like to eat. (I also like to bake, which is a bad thing, because I really like to eat.) Unfortunately, I get conflicting directives from my hungry males. Boy would prefer to eat the same four things every week if he could get away with it. The Spousal Unit (heretofore known as "TSU") likes to try new things. I refuse to make two separate meals, but I'm willing to leave off sauce off half of a recipe to placate Boy. (If I leave it on, he'll just scrape it off, and this way there's more sauce for me.)

I've been feeling sorry for Boy this week, though. Not only does he have to get up before 6 am to get ready for his 6:30 bus (and I'm sure feeling the same pain), he's got marching band for three hours after school. Tuesday was only a half day of school, so there was almost six hours of band practice, most of it outdoors in 90-degree heat. So I was feeling sympathetic, and asked him yesterday what I should make for dinner. My only requirement was that it use chicken, and not be "Chicken Stuff," a recipe he really likes but TSU finds bland. "Make that chicken with the cheese on it," he replied.

I puzzled over that for a minute. He was referring to a recipe I'd tried a couple of times that bakes chicken, topped by a thin slice of Canadian bacon and mozzarella. It's okay, but I found it overly salty for my taste. So I thought I'd experiment. I adapted a recipe I have for breaded chicken, and I thought I could put cheese slices on Boy's portion, and goat cheese and fresh tomatoes on the grownup's portions. (I looooove goat cheese, and baked with tomatoes is one of my favorite variations.)

So I had the chicken baking in the oven while I rooted around in the fridge for the cheesy toppings. Slices of Swiss, no problem. Goat's cheese? Major problem. I knew I had some, but I forgot it had been opened. Now it was not so much goat's cheese as penicillin-producing science experiment. Fine, I could adapt. I had more Swiss slices, or, to make things more interesting, I used pepper jack. I took my cherry tomatoes, sliced them in half, placed a couple on each chicken tenderloin, and topped it with the cheese before returning it to the oven for a few minutes. The result tasted pretty good. (Although not as good as it would have with the goat's cheese. Sigh.) Its appearance, however, was a little bit peculiar:


And so I have invented "Boobie Chicken"! Let me know if you want the recipe.