Shakin' It Up A Bit

Today, for us, is Friday. Normally on a Friday we head on down to our local Pizza Hut and get a Hawaiian for me and a Spicy Pepperoni for the hubby. It's a great chance to spend some time talking together as it takes about 10 minutes to walk each way, plus it's pretty cheap considering it generally lasts us 2 meals. This month, however, we have a smaller than usual fast food budget, so because of this (and the fact I forgot) I made dinner tonight.

I am glad I did too. This week has had some ups and downs for me and I felt like crap for 2 days and did.... well.... pretty much nothing. I loved that my hubby took care of me, but he is also pretty stressed with work right now and I wanted to help him out. As a result, yesterday and today I've felt like I have accomplished Wifedom. Cleaning the apartment, doing dishes (which I HATE and he generally does), making meals, cleaning up after..... yeah, I will admit it made me feel pretty good. So, in one of my spectacular Wifedom moments, I decided to make us one tasty meal for dinner. It goes as follows:

Bacon wrapped chicken with cream cheese stuffing

Salad greens with raspberry basalmic dressing

Seasoned rice with.... seasoning?

Above meal received some very satisfied compliments and grunts followed by a food coma (he's just sleep deprived right now though), so ladies, here's how to make above meal. ;)

Chicken-

partially cook bacon in frying pan, still want it flexible

pound chicken breasts till thin, around 1/4"

mix cream cheese with herbs of choice, I used some garlic/onion powder/chili flakes/and a tich of basil

spread cheese filling across chicken, roll, wrap with the bacon, skewer with spagetti (you don't have to worry about removing it like a toothpick and don't even notice while eating), and toss in the oven

cook for about 35-45 minutes at 375 till the chicken is done

*I know I didn't include measurements, but this is truly up to your taste. I used a little less than half a package of cream cheese for a chicken breast cut into about 3 pieces and probably about a half teaspoon of each herb, give or take a little*

**I also want to try it with sour cream instead of cream cheese**

Rice-

chicken broth instead of water

garlic

oregano

chopped onion

butter

and of course, rice

I just threw them all into my rice cooker and it turned out well. :) It looked like the bottom was burnt, but didn't taste it, just a little brown from the broth cooking down.

Salad-

I just had packaged greens and then made the dressing as follows

1/4 cup olive oil

1/8 cup basalmic vinegar

1/4 tsp onion powder

sprinkling of salt

1 heaping tablespoon of raspberry jam

mix with fork till smooth and OH SO GOOD!

It was one of those meals you kind of expect for something fancy, but really not very difficult to make as each leaves you plenty of time to do the next while it's cooking. I started at about 4:15 and finished cleaning up same time as the chicken finished at about 5:40 or so. Give it a shot and I hope you like it!