You know what I just realized? I haven’t wrapped anything in bacon in a rather long time. I mean, bacon is simply designed to do just that and I haven’t been taking advantage. Its long narrow strips of meaty goodness just beg to be snuggled around other meats, veggies, grains or whatever your heart desires. Bacon is designed to give hugs to other things and impart them with delicious bacony flavour. Bacon is a lover not a fighter. Bacon wants world peace. Let’s all take a page out of bacon’s book and give somebody a nice warm hug, today.

Ingredients:

4 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

4 Maple Leaf Prime boneless skinless chicken breasts

4 cups Baby Spinach, packed.

2 cloves Garlic

1 tbsp Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

I kept this recipe nice and simple so that you can add flavours to it as you choose. Maybe a little bit of cheese, some sour cream, a few extra spices here and there, it’s totally up to you.

Directions:

1. First thing we need to do is pound down our chicken. Lay it down between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound it with a meat mallet, rolling pin, small frying pan, bottle of wine, your significant other’s head (Oh, wait. We’re trying to make peace today, aren’t we?) until we’ve got a nice even piece that’s roughly a ½” thick. This is a great stress reliever, too.

2. Dice up your cloves of garlic and fry them in your tablespoon of olive oil.

3. Once the garlic has gone fragrant, throw in all of your spinach and give it a sauté until it has all wilted. Season this with a little bit of salt and pepper. Nutmeg is also traditional with spinach so you could try a little bit here.

4. Grab one of your pounded chicken breasts. You’ll notice that one side is smooth and one side is kind of rough (from being cut removed from the breastbone). Season both sides of your chicken with a little bit of salt and some pepper then, with the smooth side down, place about a quarter of your sautéed spinach.

5. Roll these up with the seam side down then wrap them around with a strip of bacon. You should be able to go around twice. If not, use another strip of bacon! MORE BACON! You shouldn’t need a toothpick to keep everything in place if you wrap the bacon tight and leave everything seam down. Mine stayed together beautifully.

6. Bake these in a 400F oven for 35 minutes, then for another 8 minutes under the broiler to crisp up the bacon. I served mine alongside some homemade baked spicy sweet potato fries. Delish!