Wednesday Night Experiment
It all started with my friend Danielle asking for Chicken n' Dumplins a couple of weeks ago, repeatedly.... What started, you ask? Wednesday night dinners. A new tradition began. Well ok to be fair I attempted to start a weekly dinner months ago but now its at least 2 weeks in the making. So instead of writing about a nice lil restaurant serving delicious food... or terrible... I'm gonna talk about my wonderful filling dinner I cooked this evening.
The Menu:
- Sauteed Squash & Zucchini
- Spinach Dip (made by Miss Danielle) and chips
- Stuffed Chicken Breast aka Kaytucky Chicken
I was stumped as to what to make for dinner... so what did I do? What any woman nowadays does... Pinterest.com. Lo and Behold, I found this recipe for Kaytucky Chicken from this blog Kayotic Kitchen. I'm not going to list the recipe word for word but I'll give you an overview and pictures :) and if you want to try it just follow this lovely persons link.
I started by frying up some bacon, about 3 pieces. Sidenote: since I don't like bacon I don't cook it often... lets just say.. the fire alarm might have gone off. Oops! I chopped up some parsley, I couldn't find the flat leaf like they suggested so I used regular and some chives (or spring onions). Then I put the firm cream cheese in a bowl with with the chives, parsley, and broken up pieces of bacon. After a couple of failed attempts at trying to just mix this together with a fork and spoon... I went for the blender. That worked but was a lil messy so be careful! Once I got my mixed all creamified I got the chicken breasts out washed them off and cut deep slits in the fattest part of them. Do this carefully or you will cut all the way through them.. however if you do make that mistake (like me). Oh! I also added some Tony Chachere's seasoning and some pepper to the cream cheese mix. This is my stuffed product.
If you'll notice I had some extra mix (parsley, bacon, and green onions) and put that on top of the mix just for a little extra. In the meantime I had gotten out my frozen puff pastry sheets so they could start thawing out. Now I laid 'em out and flattened them as best I could. I actually ended up connecting the 2 large sheets into one big sheet. After doing this and while my oven was preheating to 400 degrees I took the each chicken breast one by one and placed them on the dough. I took each one and laid it with the cut cream cheese side down, then cut the square around it large enough for the dough to cover the entire chicken breast, the seasoned each one with cracked pepper and salt. I took a beaten egg and brushed the edges of the pastry before folding it over, then also brushed the top afterward to make sure there was an extra glow after it was done cooking. While my finished wrapped product isn't beautiful... it was wrapped. In the picture you'll also see that I had sliced up my zucchini and squash.
After pulling the Spinach dip out of the oven I popped these bad boys in for about 30 minutes... They were pretty much done by the time the puff pastry was nice and golden. I would recommend putting them in a greased pan because they were rather difficult to get off of my cookie sheet. While the chicken was cooking I got out a big sautee pan, some butter, and more Tony Chachere's (I LOVE the stuff) and sauteed up my vegetables. Another sidenote: start the zucchini first then add the squash because it cooks a lot faster. Standing in the kitchen waiting the last few minutes for the chicken we started in on the dip... and it was fantastic. Then it was time for the main course! And man did it look fantastic... here's the set up :)
Let me just tell you the finished product did not disappoint. Next time I might try it with other greens inside... maybe spinach. After eating, lets just say... the chickens weren't the only things that were stuffed... hahaha. Ok Ok sorry had to go there! If you wanna give it a try and look a fancy for someone its really easy to do... I'd say I did it in about an hour maybe a little more due to distractions. First Pinterest recipe a success!
Stay tuned... more Wednesday night dinners will follow... and some friends and I ate at a new spot this past weekend and it rocked our faces off... so I'll definitely be going back and writing a little piece about that.
