Artichoke Chicken

Sometimes I go grocery shopping when I’m hungry. That’s always bad news because I stock up on random things. Not too long ago, I ended up with a few extra cans of artichokes. Just because. You never know when you’ll need artichokes, right?

One night, looking for a flavorful and easy weeknight dinner, I stumbled across a recipe for artichoke chicken. Good thing I stocked up!

First, I thawed some chicken breasts that I had preserved with my new Food Saver vacuum system (Christmas present!). Super fun!

Then I prepared to pound it out. I used my Thor hammer. Or maybe a handmade meat tenderizer, weighted with BBs, made by my Dad as a Christmas present.

I kept it in the bag just to keep it from getting too messy.

Sufficiently flattened.

Look at that handiwork! Thanks, Dad!

I cut each of the breasts in half and put them in a baking dish.

Next: the topping. I opened a can of marinated artichokes…

And used a nifty little strainer (another Christmas present) to drain the can.

And chopped them up.

I love these things.

The recipe called for Parmesan cheese, but I only had a tiny sprinkle left so I subbed in Italian blend (mostly mozzarella and provolone and parmesan I think).

To the artichokes and cheese, added some mayonnaise.

Based on reviews, instead of doing the full amount of mayo, I replaced some of it with sour cream.

And I didn’t have “garlic pepper,” whatever that is, so I used a garlic herb blend.

All mixed up, this is what the topping looked like:

Just spoon it over top the chicken and bake. Simple as that.

Mmm, all cooked up, this is what it looked like.

It was delicious. Still a little heavy on the mayo, so next time I will replace more of it with sour cream, or maybe Greek yogurt. But other than that, this was good. Flavorful and juicy!

Here’s the original recipe, if you’re interested!