Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Hello, everybody! Mary Jane here with a recipe I saw on facebook. I love those little videos that show people cooking. I could watch them all day! Of course, I'd have to stop watching them to actually cook, but you get the idea. 

 The one I saw the other day was spinach stuffed chicken breasts. I didn't make it exactly like the recipe, but that's because everything we make ends up on a bed of lettuce with chopped tomatoes. LOL.
                                                        
So, take some raw chicken breasts, slice them lengthwise but not all the way through and cook them in a pan on both sides for about 4 minutes each. I seasoned them all a bit differently because I wanted to try lemon pepper, garlic pepper, mustard, etc. There were two traditional Italian and one thyme, too.
                                                          
Layer spinach and cheese inside. I used Jarlsburg because that's what we had on hand but any kind of cheese would be good. I can imagine mozzarella and sundried tomato, swiss and mushroom, cheddar and bacon, etc. Tuck a little bit of butter inside to keep it from drying out, although I found the spinach really helped with that. We seasoned the top with garlic flakes, some thyme, and red pepper flakes.
                                                           
Bake in a foil packet (in a casserole dish) on 350F for about 40 minutes. These are really not very uniform, and I was afraid the flavors would mix together, but it turned out fine. I think if someone hated red pepper flakes, or jalapenos or something like that, I'd cook them separately.
                                       
They smell delicious! But we were trying to use up some lettuce so we put them on a little iceburg bed.

 Then my son realized we had some leftover pepperoni so he chopped that up, warmed it in a skillet, and added it to the top.

 By this point it was definitely giving me an enchilada vibe. All we needed was some hot sauce.

Ta-dah! I didn't even have to use the toothpicks to keep it closed. Delicious and not at all dry! I think the pat of butter helped a lot with that.

Until next time! Be sure to stop by my author pages at Mary Jane Hathaway or Virginia Carmichael for all my book news!