Bacon, will you marry me?

Warning: if you're not a fan of bacon, turn away NOW.  The rest of you may need to step back so you don't eat your screen.  This week's Free Recipe Friday not only involves bacon, it wraps it's lovely self around a nice little chicken breast that's been stuffed with cream cheese and diced jalapenos.  Let me tell ya, not much conversation took place when we ate these little jewels.  We just savored every bite and oohed and ahhed about it's goodness.

These little stuffed chickens can be grilled or baked.  We baked.  And then we broiled a bit to get the bacon to our liking.  You can also adjust the hotness of this recipe.  The original recipe said to stuff a jalapeno with cream cheese, then wrap the chicken around it, and finish up by wrapping it in bacon.  The females in this house decided we didn't want to deal with that much jalapeno (wimps) so I just mixed some diced jalapeno into the cream cheese before stuffing into the chicken breasts.  Make sense!?  Good.

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED:
4 chicken breasts - boneless, skinless
1/2 lb. bacon - sliced
1, 8 oz. pkg cream cheese - softened
appx. 1 tablespoon diced jalapenos
(we used the pickled kind in a jar)
a smidgen of salt and pepper


WHAT TO DO:
Preheat oven to 375 or prepare your grill as desired.

Prepare the cream cheese filling by mixing your diced
jalapenos and a pinch of salt and pepper into
the softened cream cheese.  Mix well.
On a cutting board or inside a gallon size
freezer bag, pound out your chicken a bit.
You can use the flat side of an actual meat
tenderizer or a large rolling pin.
Flatten out the chicken breasts a bit -
this will make the filling and wrapping
process a bit easier.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Because I skipped this step,
it made the wrap process a bit like
trying to thread a needle with your eyes closed.

Well, not actually that hard.  But close.
Despite my prep failure,
they still turned out great.
I really don't think you can mess these up.
We over stuffed ours, they weren't wrapped well,
cream cheese oozed out all in the pan,
and they were fantastic!
But if you are grilling, you may lose
a bit of that stuffed goodness
if you do not seal and wrap
your little chickies up tightly.

Once your chicken is pounded out a bit,
put about 1-2 tablespoons of
cream cheese mixture in the middle of
each chicken breast.
Fold the chicken in half to conceal
the filling.  Grab one slice of
bacon and begin to wrap around the chicken.
Have fun with this.  It's exciting.
We didn't bother using a toothpick
or string - just wrap the bacon
tightly and as it cooks it will shrink up
and hold everything together even better.

After filling and wrapping up the chicken,
sprinkle a little black pepper on each and
place in a casserole dish sprayed
with non-stick spray and bake for about 30 min.

If you are grilling, cook per
manufacturers instructions.

Once cooked to your liking, remove
and let rest for about 10 minutes
or you will be scalded for life.

Serve alongside a small baked potato
and how about some sauteed lemon broccoli?!?
Yes, please!

I hope you ENJOY!