September 26th, 2011: Stuffed Chicken Breast with Italian Potato Hash and Corn

Why'd I cook this? On a whim. I felt like cooking again, so I prepared a meal for my father and I. I knew I wanted to do some kind of stuffed chicken, but I wasn't sure exactly with what. I went through a few iterations and what followed was going from it being stuff with marinara sauce and cheese to provolone and turkey to pastrami and mozzarella. The final iteration was probably the best idea. I hammered them flat and then rolled pastrami and cheese in them. Then I rolled the rolled breasts in panko bread crumbs and spices and drizzled it with olive oil and sprinkle parm on top. Baked it for about 40 minutes at 350 and the result was delicious.

So, I sided it with some potato hash. I didn't quite know how to match is up to my sort of "Italian" version of Chicken Kiev. I looked up Italian Potatoes on google and a Paula Deen recipe popped up, I didn't follow the recipe at all, but saw "green onions" and then decided "GREEN ONIONS AND GREEN PEPPERS!" Threw some spices in: thyme, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, onion powder and a dash of cayenne. I cooked it up in some peanut oil and just kept it cooking at low heat for a while. Turned out very delicious. I loved it.

I cooked up a bit of canned organic corn to go with it. It was, literally, the first time I've ever had canned corn outside of Scalloped Corn, which is a family must at certain get togethers. Something that is served at Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. I can't vouch for that recipe being accurate to what I'm used to eating, but it's delicious! Not very nutritious, but a side dish that stems from the canned food crazy of middle America in the 50's. It's a dish I'll hopefully serve to my own kids at future Christmases. But, I digress. I was raised on frozen corn as a standard side for dinner, covered in butter to add flavor. But, the canned corn didn't need that added flavor. It was sweet enough, on its own, that I didn't have to alter it at all. I understand my mother's use of frozen corn while I was growing up: it was easier to store and cheaper per pound, but lacked flavor. She made up for that with butter. This isn't a slant against my mother's cooking, but merely an observation.

The meal came together well. My father and I enjoyed it greatly, although he didn't eat the potatoes and instead opted into having a side of wild rice from the previous night. The chicken was instilled with the flavor of the cheese and pastrami, the potatoes had a delicious onion-pepper taste and were cooked to perfection and the corn... well, was corn.

A delicious meal, all in all.

Edit: it's just Chicken Cordon Bleu. Plain and simple. HA!

List of strange things seen in the pictures of this blog that you don't normally see on cooking blogs:
1. Nintendo 3DS
2. Android phone
3. camera lens cap
4. ancient bottle opener
5. car keys

weird....