Feta and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts

     Can you really go wrong with the combination of feta and spinach? No, you can't. Don't even try to argue with me because I won't listen. It's a great combo and if you don't like it you are obviously defective. Basically, what I've done is make my version of a fairly ubiquitous recipe. I'm sure there are hundreds of similar recipes floating around the internet. Do you know what separates mine from theirs? Theirs suck. Theirs are not made with love. It is entirely possible that theirs were made by Baby-Eating Fascists. Use my recipe and strike a blow for global peace and understanding. If you're not part of the solution, you're obviously part of the problem. I'll stop now. The recipe is simple and delicious and I promise you'll love it. Unless you don't. And then it's your own fault for listening to me. As always, notes are in blue.

Feta and Spinach
Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Ingredients

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 3 ounces crumbled feta cheese
• 4 ounces room temperature cream cheese (we use Neufchatel)
• 10 ounces frozen spinach, defrosted and all water squeezed out
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1-1/2 teaspoons Spice House Greek Town seasoning, divided (if you can't get this spice, a mix of salt, pepper, onion powder, oregano and lemon peel. I have no idea what ratios you'd use, so good luck. Or just order the seasoning)
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F (190C, Gasmark 5).
2. Split the chicken breasts down the length, being careful to not cut completely into two pieces. You're looking to sort of butterfly the chicken.
3. Mix 1 teaspoon of the spice mix in with the flour. 
4. Dredge the chicken in first in the flour mix, then the egg, then finally the bread crumbs.Set on a baking sheet. 
5. In a small bowl, combine cream cheese, spinach, feta and remaining spice mix. Mix well until all ingredients are incorporated. 

   

   You could just take what you have here,
   add some jarred artichokes and you have a hell of an appetizer dip!

6. Fill each piece of chicken with 1/3 cup of the filling.
7. Bake for 35 minutes or until chicken juices run clear.

   

   See? Clear. We're all making it out of this meal alive.

   

   Good Times!

The Wife's Eggplant Parmigiana

Note: the following post is from the wife.

Okay, The Husband has posted several pictures of this, and I promised to type up the recipe…quite some time ago. This is one of my favorite meals to make with eggplant, mostly because it’s one of the only ways I can get my husband to eat said vegetable. I also feel it’s an improvement on Olive Garden’s eggplant parmigiana because the eggplant isn't squishy.

Eggplant Parmigiana
via The Wife

Ingredients

(assuming you’re only serving 2, but this is easily doubled)

• 1 large eggplant (Of course, this is subjective. I grew what I considered to be a pretty large eggplant this summer, but then I saw one at a farmer’s market that put mine to shame…)

  

  This little fellow seems fairly shameless.

• 1 egg
• ½ cup bread crumbs (I use Italian style, but I also supplement with Italian herbs. In a pinch, you can use regular bread crumbs.)
• ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ¼ teaspoon dried basil (You might want to add more of these herbs if you are using regular vs. Italian style bread crumbs.)
• Salt and pepper to taste (I actually use a Tuscany Blend of salt and pepper)
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

1. Slice eggplant into ¼ - ½ inch rounds and soak in salted water for at least 30 minutes to remove bitterness. (I tend more towards the ¼ inch slices. Any thicker and my husband won’t eat them.)
2. Preheat oven to 375F.
3. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together egg and a tablespoon of water.
5. In a shallow bowl, combine bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, herbs, and salt and pepper.
6. Dip eggplant slices in egg mixture allowing excess to drip off. Then dip in bread crumb mixture and coat well. (This can get really messy. I highly recommend removing any rings before performing this step – unless you’re a fan of bread crumb-caked jewelry.) Place eggplant slices on baking sheet.
7. Bake slices 20-25 minutes, until golden-brown on the bottom.
8. Flip slices and bake for another 20-25 minutes.
9. Remove cookie sheet and top each slice of eggplant with a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella. Return to the oven for approximately 5 minutes – until cheese is melted and bubbly.

I like to serve this with a side of pasta and top the whole dish with pasta sauce.

Good times!

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole

     As often as I repost recipes from Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals, I figure I'm eventually going to get a lucrative endorsement deal. Or a cease and desist order from their lawyers. Either way, until I hear otherwise, I'm going to keep sharing recipes I've used and abused from this book. This is everything you'd want from a casserole: veggies, meat and cheese with a nice crust. We absolutely destroyed this the night we served it. The wife, myself and a guest ate about 2/3 of this before falling asleep at the table. As always, changes and notes are in blue.

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Bake
via Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4-1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1-1/4 cup 1% milk (we used 2%)
• 3/4 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 package (10 ounces) frozen broccoli florets, thawed (we used fresh from the garden, we steamed the broccoli before adding it to the recipe)
• 1 package (10 ounces) frozen cauliflowerets, thawed (the cauliflower in our garden wasn't ready to harvest yet so we used a bag of frozen mixed Italian veggies. It had cauliflower, lima beans, carrots, etc)
• 1 cup cubed fully cooked lean ham (had some Honey-Baked Ham in the freezer. Score!)
• Butter-flavored nonstick cooking spray (just used regular canola oil non-stick cooking spray)

Directions

1. In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour until smooth; gradually add the milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat. Add cheeses and stir until melted. 
2. Place vegetables in a 2 quart baking dish coated with non-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle with ham. Pour sauce over ham.

   

   Just before the sauce goes on. Looking good so far!

3. Place bread crumbs in a bowl; spray with butter flavored cooking spray (or just regular cooking spray. It's just a casserole; no need to get overly fancy) Sprinkle crumbs around edge of casserole.
4. Bake, uncovered, at 350F for 25-30 minutes or until heated through and bubbly (we let it go for 40 minutes so it was good and molten when we got it out. That skin on the roof of your mouth will eventually grow back, right?)

Good times!

Spaghetti with Olives and Capers

     We had someone over for dinner last weekend who has started trying his hand at cooking. He seemed to be lacking confidence, so I let him pick a recipe out of a The Essential Pasta Cookbook and I would show him how to make it. He wound up picking this recipe, which is good because it is very simple. It's a good lesson to see that it only takes a few good ingredients to put together a great meal. Granted, I have a hard time relinquishing control in the kitchen. I did let him chop the tomatoes. He did a fine job. We served the pasta with my wife's Zucchini Boats and had a delicious dinner. As always, any changes or notes will be in blue.

Spaghetti with Olives and Capers
via The Essential Pasta Cookbook

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (true story: I tried to explain what "extra virgin" meant regarding olive oil to my wife. I told her that most olive presses are worked by a single virgin. When they want to get the last, choicest drops of oil out, they bring in an extra virgin to work the press. Needless to say, she didn't believe me.)
• 1-1/2 cup fresh white bread crumbs (believe it or not, we didn't have any white bread. We used a scant 3/4 cup of Italian bread crumbs from the cardboard tube.)
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1-1/2 ounce can anchovies, drained and finely chopped, optional (anchovies are never an option for me. I only used a few though, as I wasn't sure how everyone else would like it. They seemed pretty grossed out when I started eating them straight from the can.)
• 10 oz black olives, finely chopped
• 6 Roma tomatoes, peeled and chopped (we still had some tomatoes with basil and garlic we canned last season. We just used a whole quart jar.)
• 2 tablespoons tiny capers (in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit my capers were not tiny. They were simply below average.)
• 1 lb spaghetti

Directions

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a medium frying pan. Add the breadcrumbs and cook, stirring continuously, until golden brown and crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool completely (yeah, totally didn't do that. I took the jar of bread crumbs out of the pantry, took the lid off and poured out the amount I planned on using.)
2. Add the remaining oil to the pan and heat for 1 minute. Add the garlic, anchovies and black olives and cook over medium heat for 30 seconds.  Add the tomatoes and capers and cook for 3 minutes (since I used my own canned tomatoes, I let it cook a little longer than that to get out some of the excess moisture.)
3. Cook the pasta in a large pan of rapidly boiling water until al dente (I went to school with an Al Dente. Nice guy.) Drain and return to the pan. Add the tomato mixture and breadcrumbs and toss to combine. Serve immediately, with herbs as a garnish if you like.

Good times!

Zucchini Boats

     I do most of the cooking in the house. This is by design. The wife doesn't approve of my cleaning methods, which consist largely of wiping everything off the counter on to the floor. We have struck a bargain. I cook, she does the bulk of the cleaning apart from my non-stick pan and cast iron skillet. There was an incident years ago in which her enthusiasm with a scouring pad resulted in the untimely demise of my Emeril non-stick egg pan.

     There are times when I insist the wife step up and cook. I have a couple of meals that, even though I am fully capable of cooking them myself, I prefer that she make them. I consider them her recipes. She made them first. It's only right that the onus of cooking them always fall to her. Among these recipes are a wicked good tuna casserole, zucchini bread, potato casserole and zucchini boats. She found the recipe for these zucchini boats on an ancient CD-ROM: "Easy Chef's One Million Recipes." She actually made a couple of modifications (a girl after my own heart); the changes and notes will, as always, be in blue.

Ingredients

• 3 lg. zucchini
• 2 tbsp. onion, minced
• 3 tbsp. butter
• 1 c. soft bread crumbs (she uses an equal amount of dry Italian bread crumbs. You know, the ones in the cardboard tube)
• 1/2 c. tomatoes, cooked and chopped (she just sauteed them in a little olive oil for a few minutes)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 1/2 lb. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (she subs in cheeses at a whim. Hardcore. Sometimes she'll use Mozarella. This time she used a 6-cheese Italian mix.)

Directions

1. Cook zucchini in boiling salted water 10 minutes. 
2. Cut in halves and scoop out centers. Mix pulp with remaining ingredients. 

   

   Don't completely gut the zucchini.
   You're just scooping a trench down the middle to hold the filling.

3. Fill zucchini and top with cheese. 
4. Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. 

These are great served with marinara sauce!

Serves 6.

Good times!

Pork Chop Roll-Ups with Cream Cheese and Yellow Squash and Tomato Chutney

     My wife has accused me of having an odd thought process. After coming up with this recipe, I think she's right. I originally started looking at rolled chicken recipes. Then I thought I didn't have any boneless chicken and didn't feel like boning the chicken. So I figured I could use pork instead. Then I started to get goofy. I'm not sure what compelled me to use cream cheese and chutney, but it worked. The flavors all complemented each other. I have no idea how or why, but they did. But who am I to question success?

Pork Chop Roll-Ups with Cream Cheese and
Yellow Squash and Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

• 4 pork chops (trimmed of any bone and fat)
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 4 oz yellow squash and tomato chutney 
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 egg
• melted butter

Directions

1. Pound chops thin with a meat mallet. (I love whacking stuff with the mallet. Just make sure to put a piece of waxed paper over the chop unless you're a big fan of bits of meat and juice flying all over the kitchen. Also make all loose objects are secure, because you're going to be rattling the counter top whaling away on the pork)
2. Spread 1 tablespoon of cream cheese over each chop. Leave a little space around the edge. Spread 1 tablespoon of chutney over the cream cheese.
3. Roll chops up jelly-style 
4. Mix flour and bread crumbs in a bowl; whisk egg in another bowl
5. Dredge roll in flour/crumb mixture, dip roll in egg wash, dredge again in flour/crumb mixture
6. Place rolls on a cookie sheet covered with non-stick cooking spray. 
7. Cook 25 minutes at 375, turning once during cooking. If you see any dry spots on the rolls during cooking, just paint them with some of the melted butter. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Good times!