Gorgonzola chicken rolls

Given yesterday's ballad to gorgonzola, I'm sure you're excited to know what delicious meal I made with it. As per my typical style, I just found a way to mesh all the things in my fridge that I was most looking forward to eating into one meal, albeit a meal too long to fit in the post title: Gorgonzola bacon mushroom chicken rolls. I know. Cue the angelic chorus.

I got the idea from a meal my sister made a couple years ago. Really all I remember is that there were thin chicken breasts rolled around several ingredients that definitely included some kind of cheese, but that's a pretty good start in my book. 

Any and all meals can be improved by bacon, so I started with that. I got it nice and crispy because I wanted to break it up and have little bacon bits mixed in with the cheese, but I've found recipes where the full piece of still under-cooked bacon is just laid on the piece of chicken and rolled too.

I was a little worried getting my camera lens this close to some seriously sizzling bacon fat, but I think I escaped damage.

The next ingredient was sauteing up some mushrooms. Any variety will work I imagine, but shitakes were on sale this week and I really love their earthy flavor. I think baby portabellas would probably go better with the Italian theme of the dish but I'm a rebel obviously so I do what I want!

Portabella, portashmella

I sliced each head into three strips each, this gave me pretty similarly sized pieces. Usually I saute mushrooms in butter, but I figured with the bacon and the cheese, I could afford to go light on the calories here. I used a little chicken stock and some lemon juice and I had to stop myself from eating them right out of the pan instead of putting them in the chicken.

While they were cooking I prepped the chicken. I pounded it with my fists because supposedly that makes a difference, but I refuse to use pompous sounding words like 'tenderize' without a disclaimer. I lightly salted and peppered each side and threw on some dried basil because hey, why not?

I bought the 'thin' chicken breasts cause they roll easier but as a lifelong cheapskate, I didn't like it. If you're handy enough with a knife save yourself a few bucks and buy the regular breasts. It's something amazing like two bucks less a pound! Highway robbery if you ask me.

Next came the CHEESE! Yesssssssssss

Plus the bacon bits. Forget the raw chicken part and that looks good enough to eat already, right?

After this I laid on the mushroom strips (and contentedly ate the extras), and rolled 'em up. I used a mini meatloaf pan because I wanted to make sure I didn't have cheese dripping all over my oven and burning cause I'm a slob, and it would probably take me an inappropriately long time to get around to scraping it off.

I was worried because I didn't have any toothpicks, but they seemed to stay put together pretty well on their own.

The tricky part was cook times because I didn't really know how to judge when they were done. Based on similar recipes I found online, I gave them 25 minutes but they were definitely a little dry. I would recommend sticking to 20. After all, you'll be really annoyed, but you can always cook under-cooked meat more, you can't un-cook it.

And the finished masterpiece! I'm definitely going to have to make this one again for the roomies.

Since this was a little on the work intensive side, I recommend an easy side. I made a simple cucumber and onion salad that I thought complimented the chicken flavors really well.

Keep an eye out for more Gorgonzola recipes. I didn't finish it and I can't wait to change that.