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!

The Kitchen Sink

I have not been grocery shopping nor do I feel like grocery shopping.  I stood in the kitchen wondering what to do.  I needed to feed the troops so I started poking around the cabinets, what to do?  This is what I came up with:

2 cups of long grain, white rice
Green peas, frozen
Carrots, frozen
Brussel sprouts, frozen
1 onion, chopped
1 turkey sausage, chopped
butter (duh!)

While the rice is cooking, throw the peas, carrots and brussel sprouts into a pan with some water and butter to heat through and get warm.  Slice the turkey sausage into rounds and then in half.  Put into a saute pan with the chopped onion and cook until the onion is wilted and the sausage is hot.

When the rice is done, dump the sausage and onions in the rice and stir. Next drain the vegetables from their water and add them to the rice and sausage mixture. Stir well and serve.  I did not pull this out of any cookbook or show.  It came out of my brain (scary, I know!) and since it was just a conglomeration of whatever I could find, I named it "The Kitchen Sink".