Roasted Tomatoes on Balsamic Chicken

A few weeks ago I found The Pioneer Woman's recipe for "Bruschetta Chicken" and I wanted to try it but take it a bit farther.  My new favorite thing is to roast...everything!  It brings out so much flavor.  So after searching the web I came across Rachael Ray's "Roasted Tomato Bruschetta" recipe which is good but not exactly what I wanted.  I  wanted this to taste like the bruschetta I had recently enjoyed over at my friend Ann's house,  now as I type that it dawns on me that I could have just called her and asked for the recipe. But I digress. So taking inspiration from a few places I came up with dinner tonight and it was AWESOME! You must try this soon as possible.

Ingredients:

4 boneless chicken breasts
1 pint of grape tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic (Tim says it's not garlicky enough until there's too much garlic..??)
8 fresh basil leaves chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar
1 avocado (optional)

Instructions:

Place thawed chicken breasts in a ziplock bag and pour in about 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, 3 Tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper.  It's a marinade so it doesn't have to be precise.  Let the chicken sit in the fridge for an hour or two.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mince the garlic. Halve the grape tomatoes, toss them with the garlic in some olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and lay it out on a cookie sheet.  Roast in the oven for 15 minutes if you like your tomatoes mushy (easier to bite into) or 10 minutes if you want the tomatoes more intact. When done let the tomatoes cool.  After cooling chop up fresh basil and mix into the tomatoes as well as a few splashes of balsamic vinegar.

Grill the chicken. Plate it and spread the tomatoes on top.  Enjoy it this way or go a little crazy and add diced avocado on top.  That tastes especially delicious!

I love getting the different colored tomatoes..adds a bit of drama to the plate

Don't you just love those colors..screams SUMMER!

Next time I will roast the tomatoes less but more for presentation sake because the taste was perfect

sadly the balsamic takes away some of the color but it adds so much to the taste!

my last minute decision to throw on the avocado was the right choice, it tasted amazing with the meal