Foodie Friday - Lasagna Stuffed Chicken
So we all know that a big part of weight loss is DIET! What an ugly word. It literally begins with the word "Die". A connotation it's upheld most of my life. But I'm going to have to change that if I want to make progress. Associate the word diet with something positive, so I don't sneer every time I hear it. Or say it. Or write it. After all, "diet" doesn't just refer to those ridiculous fads that never seem to work. It doesn't just entail yo-yo dieting and other extremes. Diet is simply, what a person eats. So how can I change my perception of the word into something I might ENJOY? Well, I focus on the cooking! I love to cook. I love to make new recipes. I love trying old recipes in new ways. The best ones usually come out of my little family getting in on the fun! But how do I incorporate it into the blog? Here's how:
Welcome to Foodie Friday.
This week we have Lasagna Stuffed Chicken, courtesy of Pinterest (of course). I'm not entirely sure how to link to Pinterest (sorry, I'm a newbie) so I'll leave the link to the actual recipe here:
It was a great alternative to having a full lasagna with all the pasta. In this deconstructed version, you can have pasta on the side for all the flavors of lasagna, without the guilt or worry over whether you've balanced your carbs and proteins. So how did it go?
Step 1:
Our chicken breasts were GIGANTIC! To make our portions smaller, I cut one in half for my daughter and I. My fiance opted to go for the whole shebang. He filleted each piece open (a benefit of being engaged to a butcher), and I used our meat tenderizer to pound them a little thinner. They really were HUGE! Now, when it comes to following recipes, I'm not exactly precise. It's probably why I'm such a terrible baker. If we don't have something, I use what we do have. And I season everything to our liking, rather than measuring out what the recipe says. We didn't have fresh herbs, so I improvised using what we did have. I was a little worried about using garlic salt in combination with minced garlic, but I went with it. I'm sure Rachael Ray would approve, right? Can never have too much garlic? Is that a thing still?
Step 2:
I cannot stress this enough... DO NOT USE A PLASTIC WHISK! To combine the ricotta mixture, we tried our plastic whisk. It was not pretty. It was actually easier to use a spoon. Again, we didn't have fresh parmesan, so we used grated. The mixture was very thick. I was afraid it was too thick. But it really came in handy when my 6 year old was mixing. Nothing spilled!
Step 3:
The cheese mixture spread easily. I was not expecting it to go smoothly. With a 6 year old doing the spreading and stuffing, and a really thick mixture, I definitely expected problems. But we didn't have any. It turned out to be the easiest step.
Step 4:
The step that wasn't so easy, was closing the chicken fillets. I'm almost sure the recipe called for us to make an actual pocket in the chicken, but we filleted them open so our daughter would have an easier time helping. Closing them did prove to be a bit of a challenge. But we managed to get them into the pan without spilling too much stuffing out of the sides. We covered them with more marinara than in the picture though. What can I say? We like it saucy!
Step 5:
Word of advice here: Don't slice mozzarella at room temperature! My fiance did the best he could to make the slices as thin as possible, but it really isn't easy with fresh mozzarella. Next time, we'll take it out of the fridge and slice it while it's still cold. We also decided to cook the chicken with the mozzarella on top, rather than waiting until five minutes before it was done. It's just easier with our daughter, to only open the oven to put it in and take it out. If we had tried to put the mozzarella on later, she would have thought we were teasing her that it was done, and been upset that it wasn't. We also set the oven to broil for the last 3 minutes to get the nice browning on the mozzarella.
And the finished plate!
We paired the stuffed chicken with farfalle and green beans seasoned with garlic and black pepper. For the pasta sauce, we combined the leftover marinara and ricotta mixture and let it melt together in a sauce pan, glossed the sauce with a little butter, and finished it with a little starchy pasta water. It was delicious!
Final thoughts:
This meal really worked well for my family. While I have certain restrictions on my diet, my daughter and fiance don't. This recipe was familiar enough that I knew how to work with most of the ingredients, while still trying something new. I was able to measure out my carbohydrates instead of guesstimating the serving size. And not one of us felt deprived. Lasagna is my fiance's favorite meal. I was a little worried he'd feel duped. But he had all the flavors, and not one complaint. Very yummy!
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