I love Tuesdays. Danny and I get up to go to the gym bright nice and early and by 6:45 I am done with my workout for the day. I hate getting up, but I am so glad when it’s over and I know I have the afternoon to do whatever I want. I wasn’t feeling so great yesterday, so I was pretty excited to get out of work at 3:17 and just race home to sit on my couch. I caught up with my DVR and blog posts I’ve missed and just relaxed. There is just something about my couch that is so special to me. 
Finally around 5:00 I decided to remove myself from the couch and start to make some dinner. I made what I was originally going to make on Monday night (but instead I made the black bean soup). It is another recipe that I adapted from Rachael Ray’s Book of 10. The original recipe called for crumbled goat cheese, which I love, but Danny not so much. I decided to use mozzarella for his chicken because I knew that would be a hit with him.
Spinach and (Goat/Mozzarella) Cheese Chicken Rolls in a Pan Sauce
Ingredients
I package thin slices chicken breasts
1 10 ounce box frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
1/4 cup (for 1/2 the recipe) crumbled goat cheese
zest and juice of 1 lemon
salt and ground black pepper
toothpicks
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
Whole Wheat Flour for dredging
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 cup chicken stock (low sodium)
1 tsp parsley
3 tablespoons diced roasted red peppers
6 white mushrooms, diced
1 small zucchini diced
1 small or 1/2 large carrot, peeled and diced
Since I don’t have a mallet I used this masher to pound and flatten the chicken.
Spinach and mozzarella wrapped in chicken
I just sprinkled flour over the top and the sesame seeds on top of that…this probably wasn’t the best method, but it’s the one I went with.
Chicken cooking in 2 tbs of olive oil.
Using a mallet (or masher) pound out the chicken until it is very flat. Wring the spinach dry with a kitchen towel (or paper towels). Add it to a bowl. Add the lemon zest and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix until combined. Depending on what cheese you are using, add it now. I split the spinach in half and added goat cheese to half and mozzarella to half.
Lay the pounded chicken breasts out on a cutting board. Season them with salt and pepper. Place an equal amount of the spinach mixture on each chicken breast. Roll the chicken into a cylinder (cigar like) shape. Secure it with toothpicks. Season the outside of the chicken with salt and pepper and then dredge or sprinkle the flour and sesame seeds on top.
Preheat a large skillet over medium to medium high heat with 2 tbs of olive oil. Place the chicken in the pan and brown each of the sides for about 5 minutes, until golden brown. Add about 1/2 cup of chicken broth and turn down the heat to low and cover.
Meanwhile add 1/4 cup chicken broth to another skillet on medium heat. Place garlic and onion in the skillet and brown. Add the carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, thyme, red pepper flakes and salt. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add lemon juice, parsley and diced roasted red peppers.
Whole Wheat rolls to go with our meal (I used 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup spelt and 1 cup bread flour and added about 1/4 cup whole flax seeds)
Perrrfect.
I had some leftover rice so I just quickly made stuffed peppers using the leftover cheese.
My plate with goat cheese and spinach stuffed pepper, veges and bread.
Danny’s plate with spinach and mozzarella stuffed chicken, stuffed pepper and bread.
I love making new meals every week. Next week there might only be one, but maybe not as long as I can keep it within the $100 budget. We’ll have to see how I do when I go food shopping this week! What is your food budget? How do you decide what to cook for the week?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow that bread looks like it came out perfectly!
WOW!!!!! This is super delicious looking, amazing filling love this!
Oh wow what a fabulous meal! I love spinach stuffing of any variety. You can come and cook at my house anytime!
this looks really amazing I love goat cheese too, but not my hubby, you have the perfect solution to use different cheese in theirs
That chicken looks fabulous! So do your rolls!
That seems like it would be such a complicated dish but you made it so easy! Definitely worth trying!