home sweet home

so jackie and i finally moved into the house.  we had already eaten here (first meal in the house being breakfast cereal is kind of an odd choice, but whatever), but until now, we had not cooked anything.  after tonight, though, we have officially broken the stove in.  what did we eat, you may ask?

drumroll, please....

box macaroni and cheese!

yes, believe it or not, we had box mac and cheese...neon-colored cheese powder and all.  granted, we did toss in a handful of sundried tomatoes (extremely tasty, by the way) and serve it with a side of green beans, so it wasn't completely kid's dinner.

i'd eat it again!

chicken roll-up

jackie was very sad that i ate the rest of the pepper stuffing last night, so i promised to make dinner tonight to make up for it.  after pondering the options and scrounging some mismatched ingredients, i decided on chicken roll-ups.  that's a technical term.  trust me, though, when i say that they taste better than the descriptive name may imply.

this dish took maybe 20 minutes to prepare and about 30 minutes to cook.  served with green beans and corn on the cob.

ingredients:
- boneless chicken cutlets (i didn't pay attention to the weight)
- sundried tomatoes
- baby spinach
- bacon
- feta cheese (i used garlic & herb crumbles)
- lemon juice
- salt/pepper

preparation:
wilt the spinach in a pan (medium heat) with a little bacon fat.  add sundried tomatoes (i have a little jar with tomatoes and herbed oils) to the mix, and crumble in about three pieces of cooked bacon.  add a little black pepper and lemon juice, and stir until warm.  remove from heat.

pound out the chicken cutlets to make them thinner.  i will say that putting wax paper under and over the chicken makes it such that the mallet doesn't get all chickeny and contaminated.

spoon feta cheese and the spinach mixture onto each of the flattened cutlets.  roll up each cutlet and transfer to a greased pan.  put the seam on bottom so it doesn't unroll while cooking.  sprinkle with salt/pepper and more feeta, and spritz with a little lemon juice.

cover dish with foil and bake at 350°F for 20 minutes.  remove foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked.

verdict:
this dish was amazing.  the chicken was tender, and the filling was on point.  the juice in the bottom of the pyrex was something i could just lick up!

as an improvement idea, though, i might need to pound the chicken out a little thinner.  it would make it easier to roll up.  further, if i were to serve this dish at a party or somesuch, i would definitely use the roll-up-in-saran-wrap method (a la freddington) to make a tight cylinder that wouldn't fall apart when cutting it.  jackie also speculated that capers would fit into the filling (and i think she may be on to something there).

will cook again!