The Underwhelming Chicken Behemoth vs. Quinoa and Kale Pilaf

We've not been very good recently. We take on far too many calories in beer and chips. It's too easy to think that the next meal is going a good one, it usually isn't. We need more quick fixes and go-to healthy solutions. We need to not call the amazing Italian place and have them fetch us sausage rolls and meatball subs quickly and for a reasonable price. The ihop isn't even nice, what are we doing there? Gah.

After a few days of poor behavior, I decided to try another iotef meal. I read a few recipes that combined chicken breast with sun-dried tomatoes and goats cheese - because that sounds amazing. I've never cooked with sun dried tomatoes before, so I was excited to try. I finally settled on this one, although the task of stuffing the breasts seems to me like way more effort than it's worth. I copied the recipe exactly, which is novel for me. except I guess I didn't do a great job of combining the cornflour with boiling water, my gravy wasn't very thick. The meal smelled great but honestly this was a bit of an anti-climax. All the ingredients were delicious, (fresh basil, goats cheese, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, shallots) so it should have been delicious, but it was just kind of boring. I think I could have made a more exciting meal if I would have just made fresh pasta and threw these ingredients on top. One reason for the lack of flavor might have been that the chicken breasts that we had were just obnoxiously large. The ratio was about 95% chicken to 5% stuffing. This may have also meant that the inside of the chicken didn't get hot enough for long enough to get all the flavors mixing together. For whatever reason, it just wasn't that exciting to me, although my son and husband seemed to like it just fine.

I couldn't decide what to serve this with, the internet seemed to suggest rice or potatoes, but I felt like it wanted something green. I eventually landed on this quinoa and kale recipe. It was so nice, it was really fresh and sweet and lemony. I toasted the pine nuts under the broiler and used regular kale instead of lacinato kale. I used twice and many spring onions (scallions) and fewer shallots. This thing was just meant to be playing second fiddle to the chicken, but to my mind, it was clearly the winner on the plate. I'm much more likely to make this again than the chicken thing.

Update - Janauary 2013: I've made the quinoa and kale thing many times. I've made it for my mother-in law, I make it at every BBQ event as a healthy side dish, I put it next to quiche. Everyone likes it and I've passed it along to a lot of people. I'm never making the stuffed chicken again, but the quinoa and kale is a keeper.