As the big concept, I like to make chicken breasts (whole; sliced and stuffed; pounded, stuffed, and rolled) that can be served on a bed of something (pasta and/or vegetable). Here is the dish I developed yesterday.

I was reading some ways to marinate chicken for grilling. Not that I actually grill anything any more, by the way, probably due laziness more than anything else, and I like spending dead time reading recipes on line.

This recipe at food.com for a Yogurt Lemon Chicken marinade got my attention. The other two recipes that inspired what I ended up doing were a Spiced Yogurt Grill from epicurious.com, and a Baked Chicken at tablespoon.com

My two strategies for cooking chicken so that it comes out plump, tender, and juicy are (1) cook it in plenty of wet ingredients, and (2) make the small but important investment in a good kitchen thermometer. I use this one from KitchenAid. The ones with tethered probes are nice because you do not have to lean into your oven or pull out the food to take the measurement; and if you want to leave it in, you can get your continuous reading outside of the oven, on your countertop.

I decided that a spiced yogurt chicken would go well on a bed of roasted broccoli, so I used these two recipes to develop that part of the meal – one from the Food Network and one from Food and Wine.

I chopped up some broccoli and garlic, added pine nuts, then tossed and marinated it all in a bowl with EVOO, lemon juice, and spices. After setting that aside, made the spiced yogurt sauce and spread a little on the bottom of a baking dish. I cleaned up and dried two large skinless, boneless chicken breasts (about ¾ pound each), placed them in the baking dish, and covered them with the sauce.

The chicken baked for 40-45 minute total (internal temperature at the thickest part 165-170F), so that went into the toaster oven first. With about 20 minutes to go, I spread the broccoli mixture out on a parchment-lined sheet pan and roasted those, with one turn, in the regular oven.

Everything finished up about the same time. I tossed the vegetables with some more lemon juice and some parmesan cheese, and laid out about a cup of that on a plate. And then turned half of one of the breasts into 3 large slices and placed them on top.

The complete recipe for this dish, and others, can be found here.