Broccoli Cheddar Stuffed Chicken

Is your mouth watering yet?

Mine is just remembering how delicious this was! 

This is a recipe I actually used to make back in America, thanks to Kraft Foods inspiration. I don't know why it never dawned on me to make it here, because it was one of our favorite chicken dishes back home. I finally got around to it last week though!

The great thing about this recipe is that it's also very adaptable. This version is stuffed with broccoli, cheddar cheese, and bacon. But you could easily switch that up for spinach and cheese, or even tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Lots of possibilities! 

I have a culinary love affair with Panko bread crumbs. They make things so crispy and beautifully golden. I haven't seen them in India before, but when we were in Bangladesh, they magically had them so I picked up a few bags. However, you can just use regular breadcrumbs, and skip the step of browning the chicken in the oil and put it directly into the oven. 

Broccoli Cheddar Stuffed Chicken

4 chicken breasts

1 cup broccoli florets, finely chopped

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup bacon bits (I used premade bacon bits from America, but you could actually fry and chop bacon)

1 cup of Panko bread crumbs (or regular bread crumbs)

1 egg, beaten

3 TBS olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (375 F)

Cut a pouch into each chicken breast, by cutting a slit in the side of each piece of chicken, but don't cut all the way through or to the ends. Alternatively, you can pound out the chicken and then roll the stuffed chicken, but you should increase the cooking time then. 

Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper.

Stuff each chicken breast with a fourth of the broccoli, cheese, and bacon. Secure with several toothpicks to keep the stuffing inside.

Dip the chicken breasts into the beaten egg, and then into the Panko breadcrumbs. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the chicken in the oil until the breadcrumbs are browned, about 3 minutes per side. The goal here is just to brown and crisp the Panko breadcrumb coating, not to actually cook the chicken through. (Again, if you are using regular bread crumbs, skip this step)

Line an oven safe dish with foil, and spray with cooking spray. Place each chicken breast in the pan, and then bake for 25-30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Remove toothpicks before serving.

I served this with some sauteed veggies, and oven roasted potatoes. A+ meal!

Oven Baked Fajitas

You need to make this recipe. Like, today. 

This is the easiest, easiest thing you could make for dinner. Other than a bowl of cereal.

Especially since our house helper chops all the veggies and makes our tortillas for us, this is literally the easiest dinner I make. (In fact, I use the phrase "I make" very loosely, since I, in fact, do hardly anything).

The beauty of these fajitas is that you just cook the whole thing in oven together. No slaving away over the stove sauteeing veggies and chicken. Does it lose a little of the wonderful grilled chicken flavor by cooking it in the oven? Of course. But I only know one person in India who has a grill (Hi Steph!), so that's kind of a moot point here anyway. 

I sprinkle my chicken with some fajita seasoning I brought from America, but if you don't have any here in India with you, here's a recipe to make your own. 

Serve these along with your favorite toppings. We just stuck with salsa and shredded cheese. Soooooo delicious. 

If you're a gluten free person, you could even make this and just serve it over rice. Yum! I'm not gluten free and I still might do that someday.

Oven Baked Fajitas

3 chicken breasts, cut into strips

2 green bell peppers

1 red bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

2-3 onions

2-3 TBS fajita seasoning mix

2-3 TBS olive oil

Tortillas (here's a recipe for homemade tortillas)

Heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 F)

Cut the peppers and onions into strips. Sprinkle the chicken breast strips with 1-2 TBS of the fajita seasoning mix. 

Drizzle some olive oil in the bottom of a large oven safe pan. Put the chicken in the pan, followed by all the chopped veggies. Drizzle with more olive oil, and more fajita seasoning, then stir to mix well. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Serve with your favorite fajita toppings! Enjoy your easiest dinner ever. 

Serves 5-6 people. 

Chicken Supreme Pasta Bake

I really enjoyed this meal.

On the original recipe website, the author called it a pasta dish and chicken supreme pizza combined, and I could definitely feel that flavor combo! It was creamy, cheesy, but had that distinct veggie pizza taste to it. Yum!

I made a couple small alterations from the original recipe - left out the mushrooms bc I think they're gross, and chopped fresh tomatoes since canned diced tomatoes are pricey here. Because I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned, I added those in with the peppers and onions to cook a little in the butter. I also stirred all of the cheese into the sauce instead of sprinkling some on top before baking, since the cheese here doesn't melt very well in the oven. It was very tasty, and I'll definitely make it again.

The dish has several veggies in it, but since I'm on a force-us-all-to-eat-more-veggies kick, I served it with some sauteed broccoli and green beans, and it was great!

Chicken Supreme Pasta Bake

Original Recipe

3 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded or cubed (I sprinkled the shredded chicken with a little salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning)

1 pkg of pasta, cooked according to package directions

2 Roma tomatoes, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

3 TBS butter

3 TBS flour

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup Dahi (Greek yogurt)

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese 

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (the block "pizza cheese" in India)

Salt & Pepper to taste

In a large pan, melt the butter over medium heat, and sautee the onions, peppers, and garlic for 3-4 minutes until softened. Add the tomatoes and sautee for another 2-3 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the chicken broth (works best to use a whisk at this point) and continue to cook until slightly thickened, about 3-4 more minutes. Then slowly stir in your Dahi and cheeses. Stir and cook until the cheese is melted. Add salt and pepper to taste, and original Italian Seasoning, if you desire.

Add the shredded chicken and cooked pasta and stir until evenly combined. Pour everything into a 9x13 baking dish, and bake for 20 minutes. This will help to thicken the sauce a bit and bake all the flavors together. If you're in a hurry though (or starving), you can skip the baking step and just eat the pasta as soon as everything is stirred together!

Cinnamon Crumb Cake

Have you ever indulged in the cinnamon coffee cake from Starbucks before? Delicious, isn't it?

This is better.

I mean, this is unbelievably good. Every Sunday morning we have all of our colleagues over for breakfast, and this is definitely one of their favorite recipes I make (every week they claim whatever I make is their favorite, but really I think this gets the most votes). There are certainly never any leftovers. 

It is fluffy, perfectly moist, melt-in-your-mouth cinnamony amazingness. {leave me alone, red squiggly line spell check}

And the best part is, it's not even that hard to make! Props (as always) to Pinterest for introducing me to this beautifully scrape-every-crumb-from-the-pan recipe. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do. 

Cinnamon Crumb Cake

Original Recipe

2 cups flour (maida)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup Dahi (Greek yogurt)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping:

1/3 cup brown sugar (sometimes I just use 1/4 cup if I'm feeling stingy with my brown sugar)

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (350 degrees F)

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, cream together the butter, vanilla and sugar. Beat until well combined and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well (the better you mix these together in this step, the fluffier your cake will turn out!)

Slowly mix in the dry ingredients to the batter until just combined. Fold in the Dahi until combined.

Mix the topping in a separate bowl.

Pour half of the batter into a greased 9x9 pan (or equivalent size), or a bundt pan. Sprinkle half of the topping mixture over the batter. Carefully spread the remaining batter over the topping mixture, and then top with the remaining sugar mixture. 

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Best served warm out of the oven! (or reheated in the microwave, if you miraculously have any left). 

Garlic Butter Sauce

Back in the Cooking in America days, one of my go to chicken meals was to cover chicken breasts in Emeril's original BAM seasoning, 

sautee some sliced zucchini and squash with olive oil and garlic, and serve one of these great pasta side dishes:

Yes, I realize those instant pasta side dishes are probably full of preservatives and sodium and other really bad for you things, but I'm not gonna lie. I loved them. And I miss them.

So whipping up this little sauce for some pasta gave me a little hint of that former easy pasta side dish glory.

I brought along some of my Emeril's seasoning, so that's what I coated my chicken with, but you could use any kind of chicken seasoning you like - lemon pepper, Italian seasoning, or even just plain ol' salt and pepper. Slice the chicken into strips for quicker cooking, and cook in a drizzle of olive oil for about 4 minutes per side. I also ammended my previous zucchini/squash side, and sauteed zucchini, broccoli, and green beans in olive oil and garlic. This was the perfect little meal, and a great nod to my old America days.

Here's the garlic butter sauce recipe:

Garlic Butter Sauce

Original Recipe

1/3 cup olive oil

5-6 cloves of garlic, minced

3 TBS butter

1 TBS dried parsley (you can use fresh if it's available to you)

2 TBS Parmesan cheese

salt & pepper to taste

In a sauce pan or sautee pan, heat the olive oil and melt the butter over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for 3ish minutes, until translucent and fragrant, but not burnt. Add the parsley, salt & pepper. Pour over cooked pasta (enough for sides for 4 people, about 1/3 of a package of pasta). Stir in Parmesan cheese.