04-12-13-stuffed-chicken-breast

 

Tonight’s dinner is brought to you by my lovely sister-in-law, Debbie.

I’ve taken to planning meals a bit more, nowadays, and the first place I start is right here on this website. There are so many recipes here, it’s almost scary. Besides the almost 8 years of blog posts, there are 5 cook books and two other recipe collections – well over 3000 recipes, with more to come. Lots of yumminess.

I started looking through the first family reunion book and there was a recipe from Debbie for a ricotta-stuffed chicken breast that I actually hadn’t made before! Debbie is such a good cook and I’ve made many of her recipes in the past – one of my favorites being Zucchini Parmesan Chicken. Totally yum and really easy to do. I really miss just living a few blocks away from them. The good ol’ days…

What’s fun, though, is finding one of these recipes and remembering the fun we’ve shared. And trust me… we have shared some fun times! While I’m sure the statute of limitations has probably run out on most of them, let’s just leave it at we’ve shared some fun times…

And meals. It really was fun just living a few blocks from them for much of the ’90s. By that point we had all gotten reasonable respectable and shared season tickets to the Giants as well as meals. Fun.

I made a couple of tweaks because I only did three breasts, but here’s Debbie’s recipe. It really is good – Nonna ate all of hers. Speaking of… I found out tonight that Nonna doesn’t like asparagus. Cybil was pleased. Actually, Cybil was pleased and we really don’t know how much Nonna actually eats because as soon as she sits down, she starts feeding Cybil under the table. We mention it, she ignores us, so we’re just cutting back on the food we feed her. Otherwise, we’ll have a 400 pound dog in no time…

Ricotta-Stuffed Chicken Breasts

  • 2 cups ricotta cheese
  • 1-10 oz, package chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 6-8 chicken breasts, boned, but skins intact

Combine all ingredients except chicken. Carefully pound chicken breasts. Separate skin from chicken and stuff with cheese mixture. Secure with toothpick. Dot with butter. Bake with skin side up at 350 for about 45-50 minutes. Baste 2-3 times while baking.

I didn’t use an egg because I made such a minuscule amount of filling, and, obviously from the picture, didn’t use a skin-on chicken breast. I rubbed them with olive oil. They came out great.

My stomach is smiling. And so am I…