Stuffed Chicken Breasts

One of the first dinners I made after the whole I'm not cooking for anyone thing was a fantastic stuffed chicken breast.  I have never tried to do stuffed anything before and it was a lot of fun to do.

 

I started by butterflying my chicken breasts I wish that I had a meat mallet to thin out the breasts.  Unfortunately it got lost in a move and I never remember I need to buy a new one until I actually go to use it.    

Put in a smear of spinach pesto and fresh mozzarella balls cut into half in each breast.   Then I coated the breasts in flour, then eggs, and finally panko bread crumbs with Parmesan cheese.

 

I fried the chicken breasts until each side was beautiful golden brown.  Then we baked them on a rack to make sure they were cooked all the way through.  Keeping them lifted made sure that they didn't get soggy.  The final touches for dinner was a cheesy orzo and sauteed spinach and garlic. 

Hello yummy!!!  Everyone enjoyed dinner that night and begged me to make it again soon.  I think it will become a part of our regular rotation of meals.

 Stuffed Chicken Breasts

4 Chicken Breasts, fresh mozzarella balls (or sliced mozzarella), pesto

3 Eggs

1 C. Flour

1 C. Panko Bread Crumbs mixed with 1/4 C. Parmesan Cheese Grated

Butterfly the chicken breasts so they are uniform on each side.  Inside gets a spread of pesto and mozzarella (keep it away from the edges).  Cover in flour, dip into the eggs and then coat in Panko Bread Crumbs.  Fry until golden on each side.  If the temperature of the meat doesn't come up to 180 degrees bake until  safe.  Enjoy!!!!

Cold Weather Warm Soup

Today's recipe is curtosy of my niece's mother. She made us this soup when she stayed with us for a bit last winter. It is thick and filling and I actually find that I almost always have the ingredients on hand. Here we go!

Three medium potatoes cut into 1 inch pieces. Boil these for about 10 minutes, they don't have to be cooked all the way because you will simmer the soup later.

Reserve 1 C. of the starchy potato water for later, then drain your potatoes.

Add one diced onion and 3 TBSP butter to the hot potato pan, saute until the onions are translucent.
Add 3 TBSP flour to the pan and brown we are making a roux to thicken the soup here. The onions are still in the pan with the butter and flour.

Add your potato water very slowly and keep the whole mess moving! The only lumps you want in this are the onions. When you are done it looks like thick slime mmmm yummy. Add 3 C. of water to your slime once again keep the whole thing moving to keep out unwanted lumps

Add 1 C. of broccoli and 1 C. of cooked diced ham along with your potatoes to the pan. I used some left over from Christmas that was in the freezer. Add your salt, pepper, and sugar here too just remember most hams are quite salty. Simmer this on a very low heat for 30 minutes.Add 2 C. cheddar cheese and then let simmer for 10 more minutes.
Done! The perfect cold weather soup!

Potato Soup

3 med. potatoes
1 C. potato water
3 Tbsp. butter
1 small onion
3 Tbsp. flour
3 C. milk
1/2 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1 C. cooked ham
1 C. broccoli heads (Frozen from the store)
Pinch of Salt and pepper or to your taste
2 cup shredded cheddar cheese


INSTRUCTIONS

Peel cut potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Boil water to cook potatoes. Drain reserving 1-cup of liquid. Set aside. Peel and cut onion. Melt butter in sauce pan over medium heat, add onion cook till it looks translucent. Then add flour and stir. Add reserved potato water and potatoes stir. Slowly add milk, sugar, salt, pepper and ham. Cook on very low heat for 30min. Add cheddar cheese. Cook 10 mins.

Fun Food Friday: Vegetarian

Welcome to the very first ever Fun Food Friday!!! Hosted by Alisha G.
My goal is to every Friday post at least one recipe from the week. I may post more than one or link to my flickr account with extra food goodies and recipes. Especially for ones that I don't come up with on my own. So for the first ever Fun Food Friday, I will be posting a super easy veggie salad, and vegetarian chili with cornbread and strawberry shortcake for dessert. This is sort of an entire meal. But these recipes are so simple and easy that I can post them all at once. I will keep the amount of photos to a minimum and keep the recipe with the photo for ease. SO! On with the food!

First up is my super simple easy, veggie salad.

Recipe:
Mine here has
1can drained and rinsed Black Beans
2c frozen(thawed) corn
1 whole seeded and chopped Green Bell Pepper
1c shredded carrot (from a bag because I am that lazy)
2c halved cherry tomatoes
and enough Fat Free Zesty Italian dressing to coat.

You could easily add more or less of  veggies take out what you don't like or add in things like diced red onion a bit of garlic, celery, black olives, etc etc. This salad is only limited to you imagination.


For my next recipe I give you my all in the pot Vegetarian Chili.

Recipe:
This chili has just about everything but the kitchen sink!
Using baby portabello mushrooms as the base you can build on this and add anything you like.
Mine has onion, carrot, green pepper, corn, 1can diced tomatoes and chillies,1 jar chunky salsa, chili powder mix(from the seasoning packet aisle), black beans, zucchini, lima beans, and tomato paste.

Add a little cheese and sour cream and you have a super filling meal! You can add any kind of veggie you like or don't like.











No chili is complete without cornbread! This is super simple!
Recipe:
I used Jiffy Mix and replaced the milk (I think it was) with vanilla rice milk. You could also use soy milk. This turned out amazing!

No dinner is totally complete without a delicious dessert! So how bout classic strawberry shortcake but lighter and with less calories? Simple easy angelfood cake from a mix to replace that shortcake or the biscuit.

And strawberries mashed with stevia! you can add as little or as much as you like to make this sweet. You could even use honey or agave. Or nothing at all!

Top it all off with some delicious light whipped cream (or you could make your own) for a delectable light dessert!




That's it for today's Vegetarian Fun Food Friday! Hope you enjoy your day!

Three Meals in One Pot

I love when my dinners are multipurpose don't you? I had purchased round steak on sale for an amazing price but forgot to split it up and needed to use it or loose it. So I threw all three pounds into the crock pot with two large cans of diced tomatoes, some onion, and two green peppers sliced oh! and season all always season all. Then I let it cook away all day long for part of the day on high then the last few hours on low. The dinner here is what my mom calls Swiss Steak
Swiss Steak
1 lb. Round Steak
1 large can diced tomatoes
as many diced onions as you prefer (I do about a 1/4 cup)
1 green pepper cored and sliced
Season All (reduced sodium thank you) to taste
Throw the whole darn thing in the crock pot and voila several hours later you have a super yummy supper all you need is cooked egg noodles (unless you are like me and forgot and have to substitute rice, good but not the same as mom's).On to dinner number two other wise known as tacos! Before I froze one of the round steaks I had Photodude shred it for me. Now when you are getting ready to reheat this you can thaw it and fry it up with some taco season skipping the cooking step but if you need a really quick dinner like we did this night just throw it in the microwave until it's hot and dinner is ready. You can even pull out your good china like we did!
Dinner number three almost my dad's chili. I learned how to make chili from my dad, his was the best until he started adding weird things to it like mushrooms (did I mention that I don't like them?). This dinner what a huge hit with everyone. When I froze this last portion of the steak I put the left over peppers and tomatoes in the container, everything thawed just fine. If I was going to make this from scratch I would have used burger but the stewed meat is really a great treat and you don't need a pound to make this dinner. I'll post this recipe another time.
Happy cooking!
Erin