Stuffed Chicken Breast for Salubrious Sunday

pssst! I have a little surprise at the end, so stayed tuned......

Salubrious Sunday yet again. This time I let one of my daughters choose dinner.

And she did well.

I handed her another Cooking Light recipe book I have, that I'm much happier with. I've made several of the meals from this one over the years and have liked them very much.

If you know me....my ownership of this particular cookbook will come as no surprise

It's simply titled:

Cooking Light Chicken

This recipe was a particular challenging one for me because.....well....when it comes to pounding chicken enough to be able to roll...I really suck. Bad

When I try to pound the chicken to 1/4 inch.....the damn things start falling apart waaaay before they reach my goal.

And then when I'm trying to roll, and tuck and roll and secure with toothpicks...well, its a mess.

Stuff is oozing.

Nothing is properly tucking....and my wanna-be rolls end up looking like.....I dunno... pathetic. Toothpicks are sticking out every which way.

Chicken starts ripping more and I'm shoving the "stuff" back inside and grabbing more toothpicks.

To be honest....they start looking like a particularly disgusting sea creature that I don't even want to mention in a food blog.

Anyways....I did get some great tips from Matt over in BakeSpace, but that was after the fact. (by the way, he has a good blog called The Outlaw Gourmand) I'll try his tips next time. If I'm successful at it, I'll even let you know.

We all know that you eat with your eyes first. Thank God it doesn't end there or my family would've gone to bed last night without dinner.

Mmm...maybe not really cuz we have a gazillion fast food joints within a mile or 2 of the house.

Enough of my chatter. I don't know what's gotten into me. Must be the wine. again

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Artichokes, Lemon, and Goat Cheese

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, pounded to 1/4 inch

2 1/2 tablespoons Italian seasoned bread crumbs

2 teaspoons lemon zest

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 6oz jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

3 oz herbed goat cheese, softened

Preheat your oven to 375'

Mix together your goat cheese, bread crumbs, lemon zest, salt and pepper and artichoke hearts. Divide mixture evenly among your mutilated....eeerrr....pounded chicken breasts

Roll 'em up as best you can and secure them with as many toothpicks as needed. So...do I roll length wise or width wise? Hell, I dunno...just do it.

(please note the resemblance to unmentionable sea creature)

Tip: if you break a toothpick in the crea....chicken, try and find the other half and discard.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. If you are like me and do not own a nonstick skillet...just put a few dashes of olive oil in your favorite skillet and heat.

Brown chicken on all sides, about 3 minutes per side.

Now I was looking at this and thinking...."It needs more".

And look at all that flavor on the bottom of that pan!!! (hmm...you can't really see it, but trust me. It's there)

Seriously.....can't let that go to waste.

Must make sauce!!!!

So I put all my little cooked sea creatures (wow, is that what they mean by chicken of the sea?? HAHAHAHA) into another pan and tossed them in the oven.

Meanwhile, I scrounged through my fridge and brought out some mushrooms, chicken stock and grabbed those naked.... I mean zested lemons. I then sauteed the mushrooms in the used pan and de-glazed it with some chicken stock (about a cup) and lemon juice (about 1 - 2 lemons).

Oooooh...ya, this is sooo smelling familiar!

Chicken Piccata!!!

Where are my capers baby!!!!

Lots and lots of flavor. Not pretty, but good.

Here are the stats as listed in Cooking Light:

Calories: 234

Calories from Fat: 30%

Fat: 7.8g

Sat. Fat: 3.5g

Mono Fat: 1.4g

Poly Fat: .5g

Protein: 33g

Carb: 7.2g

Fiber: 1.5g

Chol: 78mg

Now...I do have some changes that I would make for the next time. I would use plain goat cheese and season it myself. Garlic and maybe a little Italian seasoning. I would also use canned artichokes and forget the marinated artichoke all together. You'll probably save some calories and fat right there. I would definitely make the sauce again. It really added that needed umph. Maybe even add a few slices of onions with the mushrooms when sauteing.

All in all it was a worth it. Hopefully someday I'll master that pound and roll bit. One of the tips I got was to butterfly the chicken first. That thought flashed through my head in the beginning but unfortunately it flashed right back out, never to be heard again. (must be where blonde moments are born)

Hmmm....I bet this would be good with pounded pork tenderloin.

So I have this really cool Italian friend, Dajana, over in BakeSpace. She mentioned that she'd like to participate in my Salubrious Sunday.....and well, lookie at what I found over on her blog, Bakers Corner...Somewhere in My Kitchen!!!

Salubrious Linguini with Grilled Saffron Zucchini! Holy cow....does that look good!

And the 2nd part of her Salubrious meal Rosemary and Lemon Chicken

Ya...I'm thinking I just might have to make this in the very near future!