When Mellow Man and I were first dating, he cooked me dinner of Apricot Goat Cheese Chicken. It’s one of his specialties, and a dish that I never actually make myself.  However, since it’s one of our favorite dinners around here, it seemed as if I should share it.  I asked Mellow Man where he got the recipe, and he said that he had it at a friend’s house for dinner, and liked it so much that he asked for the recipe.  (Don’t you love a man who cooks!)  Now, he’s tweaked the recipe a bit, and does it by feel, rather than exact measurements.  I am going to do my best by giving the measurements, but he shared that you can alter the proportion of ingredients based on personal taste.

Ingredients

• 4 Large Chicken Breasts
• 1/2 Cup Dried Apricots
• 1/2 Cup Goat Cheese
• 1/4 Cup Chopped Almonds
• 1 Egg (Use 2 if needed)
• 1/2 Cup Bread Crumbs
• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

Set aside 4 to 6 apricots, and then chop the remaining apricots coarsely.  Chop the goat cheese, and add the cheese and the almonds to the apricots.  Again, these proportions can be changed if you like more cheese or more apricots. Then split the chicken breads in half, and stuff a quarter of the apricot mixture into each chicken breast.  Close the chicken breast with toothpicks– we’ve learned that round work better than flat!

Once the chicken breasts are stuffed, dip them in egg, and then coat the chicken with the bread crumbs.  Put a small amount of olive oil in a pan that can transition from range to oven, and brown the chicken on both sides on the stovetop.

Once the chicken has been browned on both sides for 4 minutes, move the chicken into a 350 degree oven.  Mellow Man always places one or two whole apricots on top of the chicken to brown.  It should be fully cooked after 15 to 20 minutes.

What is your favorite meal that your spouse makes?

 

 

 

This spring my sweet Mellow Man asked me to learn how to make Chicken Cordon Bleu, as he really the kind of Chicken Cordon Bleu they served at one of our favorite French restaurants. I hadn’t ever made it before, but I thought I could learn. Well, after practicing for a while, I think I have found a great and fairly easy Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe. We’ve had it almost every week for a month, so I think that Mellow Man has gotten his fill. Thankfully, every time I made it, he told me that it was delicious! Here’s the Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe that we’ve been using. I modified it from a very popular one found at All Recipes (which is one of my favorite places to find recipes).

[Read more...]

Mellow man loves Chicken Parmesan.  I don’t know exactly where it ranks, but I’m guessing that it’s in his top ten favorite meals.  I have a great crockpot version of Chicken Parm, and while my wonderful Mother-In-Law visited before Thanksgiving, she made a no-recipe version of Chicken Parm for Mellow Man to enjoy.  While we were cooking together, she asked me if I had ever made Chicken Parm meatloaf.  She mentioned that she had seen the recipe somewhere, and it combined the ingredients of a traditional meatloaf with those of Chicken Parmesan.  While meal planning on Monday, I thought, “Why not give it a shot?!” so I pulled out my tried-and-true meat loaf recipe and started tinkering with it.  I knew that I’d need to add Parmesan and Mozzarella cheese, marinara sauce and switch up the seasoning, but it wasn’t too hard to make my own Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf.  Mellow Man liked it, but the Big One shared that it tasted like regular ol’ meat loaf (which is NOT his favorite).  My poor little Monkey is still sick and not eating much, but he had one bite.

[Read more...]