Hi Mom,
I just finished dinner and thought I'd email you with the recipe for what I just made, since it was absolutely delicious!
Last night I was looking at all the fresh chicken you bought that I had thawed and realizing that I REALLY needed to use it before it went bad. So I made two separate chicken recipes that I'd never made before. (I know...its like the first time in my pregnancy that I've actually felt adventurous in cooking!!!)
Both recipes were breaded, so here's a simple way to make yummy bread crumbs. Just take a couple slices of whole wheat bread, toast them thoroughly (mine were browner than I would normally eat and even a teensy bit burned in places), put them in the food processer and blend. (I couldn't find my chopping attachment, so I used the shredding attachment and fed half slices down the chute thing that i normally put the cheese down.) - Sheesh baby girl is kicking the computer. - Then I mixed them with a seasoning that Jamie's mom always buys and that I really like on buttered pasta or in some italian dishes or whatever. Its called Mixed Up Salt. You should be able to find it in the weird salt section. I probably used maybe 3 tablespoons of the mixed up salt to 4 slices of bread. But not sure, since I just sprinkled it in.
First recipe (for what we ate last night).
Ingredients: thawed chicken breasts, block of cream cheese, chives or green onions, parmesan cheese, breadcrumb mixture, melted butter.
Directions: Take a chicken breast, and butterfly it. (You could pound it to make it thinner but I didn't have a pounder thingy, so I didn't.) Then put a slice of cream cheese (I used half a block of cream cheese divided between 4 small breasts) and some chopped chives or green onions on the chicken and roll it up, securing it with a toothpick or two. The cream cheese doesn't need to be totally covered by the chicken. Roll the rolled up chicken in the bread crumbs, then put it in a greased casserole dish or something to bake it in. Do that with all the chicken. Sprinkle the tops of the chicken things with parmesan cheese. Drizzle it all in melted butter. Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes. And be sure to eat the goop. This is the first meat that isn't cut up very small that I've had any desire to eat in a very long time. But I had seconds of this last night!
Second recipe (for chicken nuggets).
Ingredients: chicken, butter, breadcrumb mixture.
Directions: Cut up the chicken into maybe 2 inch cubes. Eh, the size is approximate. Dip the chicken in melted butter (or just dump a handful in the melted butter like me). Coat each nugget with bread crumbs. Put in a single layer on a foil-covered cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. When they're baked you can also freeze them and rebake them at 350 for 10 minutes when you want to use them. That's what I did for dinner tonight. Yum!
Well, just thought you might like some (relatively) low carb recipes to add to your repertoire. I especially love the chicken nuggets cuz they're super easy, all ingredients that I normally have around, and they're freezable!
Hope you're having a great time at Dad's party! And that Dad is very surprised! :)
Love, Catherine
