Rolled Chicken Florentine

I've been out of the habit of cooking lately. Hence my lack of posts. So when I started back up, I wanted something pretty easy, but different than our everyday fare. This was what I came up with.

I think anything "Florentine" is pretty tasty. It is usually some combination of tomatoes, spinach, and mozzarella. Red, green, and white, after the colors of the Italian flag. I just like the culinary combination. Haha. I used thin chicken breasts so I could roll them around the filling, but if you just have regular ones, just butterfly them and cut them at the seam to make two thin breasts from the one regular one.

This worked out really well. My husband and I both enjoyed it. I served it with some seasoned potatoes and crusty bread. Carb overload, I know, but it was awesome.

Ingredients:
-thin chicken breasts, enough to feed everyone
-Roma/plum tomatoes (each tomato makes about 5 slices, and you'll need about two slices per chicken breast)
-frozen chopped spinach (I probably used a tablespoon for each chicken breast)
-mozzarella cheese, shredded (a used about 2 tablespoons for each filling, and a little more to sprinkle on top)
-garlic powder (about 1 teaspoon per chicken breast)
-Italian seasoning (about 1/2 teaspoon per chicken breast)
-cooking spray
-toothpicks

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with foil. Spray with cooking spray.

Lay out each chicken breast.

Top with tomatoes,

then the frozen spinach.

No need to thaw the spinach. Sprinkle with some garlic powder. Top that with a generous pinch of mozzarella.

Carefully roll the chicken around the filling, securing with a toothpick.

Repeat for each chicken breast. Place on the baking sheet.

Spray the chicken with a bit more cooking spray.

Bake for about 15 minutes. Remove the chicken from the oven. The chicken should be just about cooked through, although maybe not completely. Sprinkle on a little garlic powder and Italian seasoning.

Top with a little bit more mozzarella, and return to the oven. Bake 5 more minutes until cheese is melted or until chicken is cooked through.

Serve hot and enjoy!

Cream Cheese Strawberry Crescents

So recently I went to someone's house for a get together. I wanted to take something, but it was kind of last minute, so I needed to make do with what I had in the kitchen. Lucky for me, I had a roll of refrigerator crescent rolls. You can make so much with those things, seriously.

I then looked to see what I could find to stuff inside these lovely rolls. I found cream cheese and strawberry jelly. Perfection.

These were the result of the experiment. I will say they made a lovely sticky sugary mess on my baking sheet, so next time I might do things a little differently, but they were still good. You could do these with a full crescent roll instead of cutting them smaller like I did, too. I was just trying to make smaller treats. :)

Ingredients:
-refrigerator crescent rolls
-About 1/4 of a block of cream cheese
-About 1/3 cup jelly

Directions:
Preheat oven according to package directions.

Lay out the crescent roll dough on a baking sheet. If using the full rolls, just separate them. If cutting into smaller bits, cut and separate (I didn't separate very well, and it made it harder to roll them around the filling).

Spread a little cream cheese on each roll.

Spoon a little strawberry jelly over the cream cheese.

Roll the crescent dough around the filling and evenly space them on the baking sheet.

Bake according to package directions, until golden brown and yummy.

Remove from baking sheet before they cool, especially if the jelly oozed out and made a mess. Once it cools, it's almost impossible to get the rolls off without mangling them. Serve and enjoy.

Yum!

Italian Chicken

We had someone bring us dinner recently, and it was amazing. It was some sort of breaded chicken with tomatoes on top of it, with some sort of Italian-type dressing type thing. I know, incredibly descriptive. Haha. Anyway, it was amazing, so I decided to see if I might be able to replicate it. This isn't exactly the same as what our friend made but it was pretty good anyway.

I made some flavored rice to go with it, as well as some ciabatta rolls. You could add to that fare if you want, that's just what I did. Away we go!

Ingredients:
-chicken breasts, enough to feed everyone
-flour, for dredging (probably about 1/2 cup for2 or 3 chicken breasts)
-egg wash for dredging (1 or 2 eggs with a little water or milk, scrambled together)
-breadcrumbs for dredging (I used plain breadcrumbs since there was a lot of flavor elsewhere)
-Roma/plum tomatoes (I used one and a half, because it gave me enough slices for 3 chicken breasts-each tomato will give you about 5 slices or so...)
-Italian dressing (I used probably about 3/4 cup, maybe up to a full cup)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pour in a couple tablespoons of Italian dressing into a glass baking dish, just enough to coat the bottom so the chicken won't stick.

In three separate shallow dishes, place the flour, egg wash, and breadcrumbs.

Dredge each chicken breast in the flour, shaking off any excess. Then dredge in the egg wash, and finally in the breadcrumbs. Place the chicken in the baking dish.

When all the chicken is coated in breading, place two to four slices of the tomato on top of each chicken breast, depending on how big it is and your own preference.

Pour the Italian dressing over the chicken and tomatoes.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve hot with yummy sides ans enjoy!