My husband is back on his South Beach Diet kick, which is always fun for me because I get to try to cook yummy carb-free food. Months ago I found a recipe for chicken roll-ups with roasted red peppers, feta and pistachios with some sort of a lemon yogurt sauce. I was originally going to make this recipe, but I had to wing it when the lemon zest made the yogurt curdle. The sauce went down the drain and what I came up with instead was deeeelightful. My husband is always positive about my cooking, but tonight he said the veggies were the best he’d ever tasted.

Ingredients

Two boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2-4 roasted red peppers (jarred or make them yourself)

1/2 cup shelled pistachios, coarsely ground

1 tsp. smoked paprika

salt and pepper

1/2 cup crumbled feta

2 Tbs. olive oil

For the veggie side:

1 zucchini

1 golden zucchini (or whatever that yellow kind is that’s always next to the zucchini)

6 mushrooms

3 mini yellow and orange bell peppers

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp. fresh thyme

1 tsp. lemon zest

1/4 cup chicken stock

smoked paprika

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together the pistachio crumbs, feta, olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper till you have a tasty paste. Pat dry the red peppers. Rinse and pat dry the chicken breasts. Cut a deep slit in each breast as though you were going to butterfly them, but don’t cut all the way through. Stuff each breast with red pepper and the feta mixture. Close the slit with two toothpicks. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan over medium high heat and brown the chicken on each side. Place into a baking pan and bake for 30 minutes. Remove toothpicks and let sit five minutes before serving.

Meanwhile, chop the zucchini into 1-inch pieces. Slice the mushrooms and mini peppers. In the same pan you browned the chicken, add the veggies, thyme and lemon zest. Cook the veggies for a few minutes then add the stock. Add the paprika, salt and pepper to taste and cook till the stock disappears and the veggies are soft. Top with crumbled feta.