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!

Billieanne's Pizza Pockets!

My oldest daughter, Billieanne, posted a recipe titled "Pizza Balls" on my Facebook page a few days ago.  I did not really feel like making dinner so I decided to stop on the way home and pick up the ingredients for the recipe she posted and let HER make dinner.

The ingredients are pretty simple:

(3) cans of buttermilk biscuits (eight in each can)
(1) package of pepperoni slices
(1) block of cheese (we used mozzarella)
(1) can/jar of pizza sauce
(1) beaten egg
garlic powder, dried basil

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.  Slice the block of cheese into squares as shown.  Open biscuits.  Smash one biscuit flat, put on a piece of cheese with a piece of pepperoni on each side of it.

Weird camera angle! Sorry!  That is one flattened biscuit with one piece of cheese and two pieces of pepperoni.  Wrap biscuit around the cheese and seal.  Put the sealed side down into a pan sprayed lightly with cooking spray.

Repeat until you have used up all three cans of biscuits (or however many you choose to make!).  Brush the beaten egg on top of the biscuits.  Sprinkle afterwards with garlic powder and dried basil.  Bake for approximately 18 minutes and serve with warm pizza sauce.

This is what the end result looks like! It was SOOO YUMMY!!  Billieanne did a great job making it and we all did a great job eating it!  I think this was quite a successful recipe find and I am proud of Billieanne for making it!