Pizza Chicken Roll Ups

I recently bought a subscription to Taste of Home magazine for a GREAT price ($3.99 for a whole year!) and between the magazine, the hardback books I bought for $5 a piece over the summer and the website, I've been introduced to TONS of easy, weeknight recipes.

This is one of the easiest recipes ever. And so easily adapted to making it for two or making it for ten. There are a few changes I'll make for next time (like spooning some of the sauce in the bottom of the baking dish), but this was really tasty as it was.

Pizza Chicken Roll-Ups
(Recipe adapted from Taste of Home)

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts***
• 8 slices of pepperoni
• 4-5 slices of mozzarella cheese
• Pizza sauce

 

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a baking sheet; set aside.
2. Flatten each chicken breast between two pieces of parchment paper. These need to be about 1/4" thick.
3. Place a slice (or a slice & a half) of mozzarella on each piece of chicken.
4. Top with 4 slices of pepperoni.
5. Roll each piece of chicken up tightly and secure with a toothpick.
6. Spoon pizza sauce over each roll, cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. 
7. Uncover, top each roll with another piece of cheese and bake for an additional 5 minutes. 

Remove the toothpick and serve. I served mine with AMAZING roasted broccoli and mashed potatoes. This was an awesome meal!

***We buy our chicken in huge packs from the commissary or Sam's, and the breasts are ridiculously huge (portion sizes is the main reason this country is obese, in my opinion), so I always butterfly them (just cutting all the way through) and get two smaller breasts out of each one.

Parmesan Chicken Bake

When I decided to do this 365 days of recipe thing, I decided to post the good as well as the bad.

Today's was a bad one.

Not so bad it was inedible, but definitely not something that is going to have a place in my recipe rotation. The premise of the recipe is that you get all of the textures of a traditional chicken parmesan, without the time and the calories that come with the breading & frying. And the recipe originator calls it the best chicken parmesan EVER. Sounds great, right? In theory, yes.

You layer chicken, marinara sauce, cheese and then top it off with croutons and more cheese. Since the croutons are pretty big and are sitting on cheese instead of marinara sauce directly, they don't get all that soggy and you have the crunch that you get with chicken parm.

The problem is that the croutons are BIG. You end up with giant cubes of crispy bread essentially on top of chicken, cheese and marinara sauce. It doesn't come together very well at all, in my opinion. It doesn't end up tasting anything like chicken parm. The croutons are too big to be able to get a forkful of chicken, cheese, sauce and crouton all in your mouth at once. With chicken parm, every single bite has cheese, marinara, chicken and the crispy breading. I ended up plucking the croutons out and eating those by themselves, and then eating the rest of it by itself.

My problem is also that the original recipe comes in the form of a video, not typed out instructions. And while that has nothing to do with the recipe itself, it annoyed me.

Anyways, here is the recipe if anyone would like to attempt this themselves. Maybe someone could play around with it and find a better way to make this work.

Parmesan Chicken Bake
(Recipe adapted from this one.)
Ingredients:

• Olive Oil (enough to coat the bottom of your baking dish)
• 3 cloves of crushed garlic
• 2 teaspoons of crushed red pepper flakes
• 4 chicken breasts***
• 2 cups of marinara sauce (homemade or jarred; I just used a jar of Barilla)
• 1/4 cup of chopped basil
• 1.5 cups of shredded mozzarella
• 1 5 ounce package of garlic croutons

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Coat the bottom of your baking dish in olive oil. Distribute the garlic and the red pepper flakes.
3. Place the chicken in the oil.
4. Pour on the marinara sauce over the chicken.
5. Top with one cup of the cheese.
6. Sprinkle the croutons evenly over the cheese.
7. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.
8. Remove the foil, sprinkle with the remainder of the cheese and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

I served mine with a salad and fresh baked french bread.

***About the chicken. A LOT of the comments for this recipe said their chicken was undercooked. The author of the recipe swears up and down that his 5 HUGE chicken breasts came out perfectly cooked, but err on the side of caution. We buy our chicken in huge packs from the commissary or Sam's, and the breasts are ridiculously huge (portion sizes is the main reason this country is obese, in my opinion), so I always butterfly them (just cutting all the way through) and get two smaller breasts out of each one. So while I used four pieces of chicken, they were only about 3/4 of an inch thick, and they were perfectly done in the 35 minutes it took this to cook. If you're using a whole, super thick breast, you may want to flatten it out some, or check the chicken before serving.

Greek Spaghetti with Grilled Chicken, Tomatoes, Olives, Garlic, & Feta

The moment I saw this on Pinterest, I knew I had to make it. It includes some of my absolute all time favorite things: kalamata olives, feta & tomatoes. My obsession with those three things is pretty much borderline ridiculous. One of my favorite foods of all time is a chopped vegetable Greek salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, feta & of course olives). During the summer I basically eat vats of it.

The original recipe calls the fresh tomatoes the star of the dish. Since it's winter, and tomatoes aren't exactly at the height of freshness, I decided to take it up a notch by adding some grilled chicken. You could also make it a little more health conscious by using whole wheat spaghetti, like I will next time. I only had regular spaghetti on hand, and when I looked at the nutritional label I about died.

I think this would be awesome with some sauteed shrimp too. Just saute it in the oil for a minute before adding the pasta. Yum!

Try this! It is so delicious. The heat of the pasta, and then of course the oil & the hot pan melted the feta slightly and made the "sauce" creamy and delicious. The husband and I absolutely loved it and I hope you will too!

Greek Spaghetti with Grilled Chicken, Tomatoes, Olives, Garlic, & Feta
(Adapted from Food & Wine Magazine)

Ingredients

• One pint of cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 C. of pitted kalamata olives, halved
• Four ounces of crumbled feta
• 1.5 T. of drained capers
• 6 T. of  Olive Oil
• 4 cloves of Garlic
• 1/2 LB. of whole wheat spaghetti
• *** Two grilled chicken breasts. OPTIONAL***

Directions

1. Put the tomatoes, olives, capers & half of the feta in the bottom of a large bowl.
2. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, salt the water and drop in the spaghetti. Cook til al dente. 
3. When the pasta is done, drain and pour into the bowl with the chopped tomatoes, olives & cheese.
4. In a separate pan, heat the olive oil on medium and then add the garlic. Cook for a minute, stirring every so often. 
5. Pour the pasta mixture into the oil & garlic. Use tongs to combine thoroughly. Let hang out in the pan for about a minute, letting the flavors come together. 
6. Plate the pasta and top each plate with the remaining feta. If desired, add some sliced grilled chicken for some extra delicious protein!

Stuffed Greek Chicken

Kalamata olives and feta cheese are two of the great loves of my life. I really think I could live on olives. I go through about two jars of them a week, and if the fat content wasn't so high I think I would eat more.

Anyways. I made a stuffed pork chop recipe a few months ago that I saw on Food Network. It was stuffed with spinach, goat cheese and sundried tomatoes. And it was delicious. So, I took that concept, changed up the ingredients to make it Greek style. And it was absolutely delicious. It was fast and easy also, so it's a great weeknight dinner.

Stuffed Greek Chicken
Ingredients

• Two chicken breasts
• 2 T. of olive oil
• dried oregano
• McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning (obsessed with this stuff!)
• Half of a red bell pepper, finely diced
• 1/4 C. of chopped kalamata olives
• 1/4 C. of feta crumbles

Directions

1. Mix feta, olives, and red pepper in a small bowl. Set aside. 
2. Drizzle olive oil in bottom of a preheated skillet. 
3. With a paring knife, cut a pocket in the chicken. Be careful not to cut all the way through. Stuff each chicken breast with half of cheese/olive/pepper mixture. 
4. Sprinkle each breast with oregano and steak seasoning. Place in pan seasoned side down and then season the other side. 
5. Cook 7-8 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the chicken. When you flip the chicken, be careful not to lose any of the delicious stuffing.

With this chicken, I served a salad and mashed potatoes. I know this isn't very gourmet of me, but I really love instant mashed potatoes. I mean, you add boiling water, fluff them, and you're good to go. This is awesome to me, and I eat them a LOT. Well, tonight I just happened to look at the back of the package at the nutritional information. Yes, they're low fat & low calorie, but God knows what else is in them. I mean, that list of ingredients is insane, since mashed potatoes should just be butter, milk and potatoes of course.

I think once I've eaten the packs of these in the cabinet, I won't buy them again. This means I won't be eating mashed potatoes anymore, but my roasted potatoes are insanely delicious, so I'm happy with those.