Bacon-wrapped Stuffed Chicken with Spinach & Cream Cheese with Sauteed Brussel sprouts and rice

I finally felt creative in the kitchen again after about two months of hitting a brick wall.  Yesterday's grocery shopping trip netted quite a lot of things on sale, one of the most exciting items was the bacon!  I decided I needed use it for dinner. I poked around the kitchen to see what I could add to it.  This is what I came up with:

(6) thin sliced chicken breasts
(1) block of cream cheese, softened
(1) pound of bacon
(1) thawed package of spinach

Spread the cream cheese on the chicken breast and press some spinach into the cream cheese. Make sure you squeeze any water out of the thawed spinach before you add to the cream cheese.  Roll the chicken up and the wrap with a piece of bacon.  Place in a baking dish that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.  I wanted to secure these with a toothpick but I could not find them! Fortunately they ended up not needing the toothpicks.  I baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and then switched to broil for approximately five minutes just to further crisp the bacon on top.

While the chicken was baking in the oven, I took the last two leftover pieces of bacon and put in a saute pan to fry with half a small yellow onion chopped small.  I let the bacon get crisp and then drained a small portion of the bacon fat off, but not all.  I then added three servings of frozen brussel sprouts and 1 tablespoon of butter to the saute pan, put a lid on and let gently saute for about 10 minutes while the chicken finished baking.  I do not think I will EVER eat brussel sprouts any other way again! They were the best I have ever had!

Here is how the finished dinner looked:

The cream cheese and spinach were warm and oozing inside the chicken. The chicken was moist because of the bacon.  The brussel sprouts were smoky and tender.  It was a wonderful dinner.  Even my pickest eater came back for seconds!  Mission accomplished for dinner!

Bacon-Butt Burgers for the Birthday Boy

I finally got to make my baby boy his birthday dinner tonight. His request:  hamburgers, my homemade macaroni and cheese with Ballyshannon Irish cheese, and canned peas. I made a run to the Farmer's Market and got two pounds of freshly ground chuck (poor chuck) at the butcher shop, some vine ripe tomatoes and lettuce. Strangely enough, the Farmer's Market did not have any lettuce! We had to go to Wal-Mart for that.

When your hamburger is ground fresh not a lot needs to be done to it. The only thing I added was a tiny bit of cayenne pepper and some soul seasoning.  I had some bacon ends and pieces (purchased in a 3 pound lump really cheap!) so I decided to give my hamburgers a bacon butt..  After mixing the seasonings gently into the ground chuck (poor chuck) I formed them into patties and added bacon pieces to the bottom and placed them in a pre-heated skillet on medium high to fry.

While the burgers began to fry, salted water went on to boil for the macaroni and I began slicing up a huge chunk of Kerrygold Ballyshannon cheddar cheese. It is Irish cheese and one of Nick's favorites.
Kerrygold cheese

When the water came to a rolling boil I added the macaroni and boiled until just tender. I do not like mushy noodles! It was dumped into the strainer (one pound of macaroni, by the way) and then back into the hot pot. One stick of REAL butter, half a pound of chunked Ballyshannon cheese and a splash of heavy cream get dropped into the hot noodles.  The amount of cream depends on how thick you want the sauce in the macaroni.  We use very little as we like the butter and the cheese to do the work.

In the meantime, the burgers have been flipped over.

The bacon has cooked into the butt of that burger like a glorious bikini bottom! The next is key:  DO NOT SMASH YOUR BURGER!! Good grief people. Let the burger be thick and juicy. Don't make the bacon give the hamburger a wedgie!!!

These yummy burgers were served with thick-sliced vine ripe tomatoes, lettuce, provolone cheese, onion, mac and cheese, and peas.  Here is the happy birthday boy with his dinner:

Even though his birthday dinner was delayed by one day, he was a happy fella.  He loved my bacon butt burgers and his homemade mac and cheese.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICK! I LOVE YOU!


PS....I must qualify this.  The birthday boy specifically asked for canned peas. I don't really eat them anymore. I used to make them when they were little and we were broke. Now that we are better off financially and I am a little more knowledgeable, I use frozen. I used canned tonight at his request.

It was a comfort food kind of night

Today was a sad day for my children and their biological father. His mother passed away last night and I pray that she is resting in peace.  Tonight was not a night to try something new and fancy so I did what any good Italian momma would do and busted out the pasta, the butter, the garlic and the bacon!

I put some garlic bread in the oven to bake while I made the rest of this quick and comforting dish.  One pound of bacon was put into a pan to fry into crispy goodness. One pound of pasta went into salted water to boil.  One and a half sticks of butter went into a pan so that I could clarify it into a wonderful sauce.  I smashed and minced 10 cloves of garlic.  While the pasta boiled and the bacon fried, I put the garlic into the clarified butter to marry and meld into garlicky goodness.

When the pasta was finished it was drained and put into a large bowl. The bacon was crumbled over top and I poured on the clarified butter and garlic. It was tossed together and served with the garlic bread.

Overall it was a very comforting meal that everyone enjoyed. It has been a sad day and bacon and pasta generally make things better. Maybe not the healthiest of meals but since we don't use bacon very often, I think it was okay.

Don't forget to tell the ones you love that you do love them. Also do not forget to share your faith with them as well. You never know when it will be too late.

Pasta CarboNOT....

As usual, tonight's dinner inspiration came from my need NOT to go out to the grocery store! I was tired!  I threw a batch of my cornbread in the oven for starters and then begin to look around to see what I had.

Bacon.  You can't go wrong there, right?  I decided to make a sort of Pasta Carbonara...that is until I read the recipe all the way through.  I am not really a big fan of using raw eggs that don't really get cooked (go figure, as I am the first person eating the cookie dough or cake batter!).

As the bacon fried up all crispy in a skillet, I poured a large amount (probably around 2 1/2 to 3 cups) of milk in a bowl and set aside to warm up a little.  Four tablespoons of real butter went in a pot to melt.  To that I added two heaping tablespoons of flour and let it create a nice blonde roux.  This is the way I usually start making my own homemade bechemel sauce.  After the flour cooked a little bit and got bubbly, I slowly added the milk, a little at a time, stirring and adding. I then grated some fresh nutmeg into the bechemel along with some black pepper. I let this simmer on the stove.

The bacon was put on a plate to drain.  I then took a second small saucepan and put two tablespoons of butter in to melt on low.  I added about 1/2 of a large onion, chopped.  Next I added some Hunt's diced tomatoes (drained and only a few tablespoons) and some chopped garlic.  This sat on low and softened and married flavors.

While the pasta was boiling (I used angel hair), I added a small handful of finely grated cheddar cheese to the bechemal. I did not add a whole lot of cheese as I truly was not going for a cheese sauce.  I just wanted the added depth of flavor.

When my pasta was al-dente I drained and mixed in my bechemel sauce.  I added my crumbled bacon and stirred well.  I served this with the onion, tomato and garlic mixture to the side as I have quite a few picky eaters at my table.  I will say it was simply the most flavorful pasta ever! I loved the slight addition of the tomato, onion and garlic mixed in with the pasta and bechemel.  So yum.  I think it has made its way onto my regular menu.  The cornbread served with this made it a rather rustic dinner.

Now I am off to church! Sadly, since I spent so much time with my bechemel I did not have time to make goodies for the youth group! Oh well! I am sure they will let me slide this one Wednesday!

Hog on a Dog

Tonight was another night I did not want to go to the grocery store.  I stepped into the kitchen and do what I do best:  create!  Here is what I started with:

The hot dogs and bacon were in my freezer.  I put them in the sink in hot water to help thaw them out quickly.  The crescent rolls were on hand as well although honestly I would have preferred using canned biscuits.

Fry the bacon until good and crispy.  Remove from pan and drain on a paper towel.  Turn the heat down a few (don't smoke up your kitchen!)

Cut about (8) hot dogs first in half then in half again lengthwise.

Add them to the pan in the bacon grease and fry for just a few minutes to heat through.  Remove to a paper towel to drain.  Open the crescent rolls (preheat oven to 375 degrees) and separate. 

Lay 1/3 of a slice of American cheese lengthwise on the rolled out crescent dough.

Add a slice of hot dog and some of the crispy bacon ontop of the cheese and dough and then roll it all up and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake in the oven for about 12 - 14 minutes. I actually put them too close together and some of the sides when they expanded stayed a little big doughy.  They need to have room to spread out and turn brown.  Overall it was a little weird but when feeding teenagers, weird can be okay.

I served it with baked beans with my leftover hotdogs and bacon that I did not use.  It is not "Iron Chef" worthy but it did the trick for tonight.  It definately was not a favorite of mine or Breezy but it was fun and creative.  I think I would have liked some barbeque sauce added in before baking.  And please, don't anyone hit me because I used so much bacon and bacon fat.  I was DEFINATELY not going for low calorie!

Are you brave enough to try it?

Dinner....definately NOT low calorie!

I was not in the mood to cook a full-blown dinner tonight.  After finding bacon on sale at Bottom Dollar, I decided it would be a good night for some BLT's!  Of course, we never do it exactly by the book.  That would be too boring.

After frying up the bacon the old fashioned way (man, I wish I had a microwave bacon cooker!) I put the bacon on some sandwich thins, spread on the Duke's Mayo (is there really any other kind of mayo???), lettuce, thinly sliced heirloom tomatos, salt and freshly ground pepper and some fresh mozzarella.  Hey! I am Italian by marriage so I don't think there is anything as lovely as adding fresh mozzarella to absoloutely anything I eat!

I believe it was successful...no words of complaint from anyone! And, although it was not exactly low calore, I did only have one sandwich, not two! I did not even sneak very much bacon while I was cooking it (is it possible to actually cook bacon and not sneak at least a little bite???)

Did I mention I love James Bond? We just finished watching "The Spy Who Loved Me"....<sigh> Roger Moore is so sexy.  HA HA HA...I know that was totally random.