Stuffed Chicken :)

First things first: HAPPY BIRTHDAY YAS YAS!! love you lil' cuz!! :)
back to business lol ...

Now, at the request of my gorgeous friend Dolly, todays blog will be about this random dish i made up that i just call stuffed chicken. which is what it is.. but i think i need to think of more creative names lol. any suggestions will be taken into serious consideration!

so this meal was inspired by hours of watching cook shows one afternoon when i first got here (which is a habit i got from my little sister, whos been watching cooking shows since she was 7- so thanks nils, love you!) i was watching the woman with the white-blond crazy hair and the mismatched socks (Ann something), and she made chicken stuffed with livers and goat cheese. as you can imagine, i sat with my grossed out face thinking "blekh who would eat that" (yes. i have the taste of a child) but then i thought.. i could still stuff the chicken with things that dipak and i would eat! and thus, my stuffed chicken was born of grossness.

i should also mention that raw chicken may as well be .....im going to look up a poison..... Boric Acid. when i touch it i feel like im going to get salmonella in 5 seconds unless i wash my hands.

anyway, i decided to stuff my chicken breasts with spinach, bacon and gorgonzola... normally i dont eat gorgonzola :/ its also too fancy for me. but one time i had this gorgonzola pasta.. it was all melty an yum, so i thought, maybe when its cooked ill like it. i kinda didnt actually. but dipak loved it! so i think, again, it was a case of my childish taste.

the ingredients i used are:

3 chicken breasts 
Extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp minced garlic (i used a heaping tsp! i looove me some garlic)
1/2 lemon (youll juice it later)
salt and pepper (just keep them on hand for sprinkles here and there)
and i dont know if this is allowed but... i use 1 tbsp of bacon bits (no judging!) just get the ones that are made of real bacon, and not the crispy weird ones that are definitely made of gravel -OR if thats unacceptable, of course you could use 1 bacon strip cut up into tiny pieces, or MINCED, but i just dont like buying real bacon. its part of that restaurant magic i dont like to mess with.
almost 1/4 cup of chicken stock (basically a splash of it)
gorgonzola crumbles (however much makes you happy- or you can replace this with any other cheese too. next time i wanna try mozzarella)

preheat your oven to 375 degrees. while its heating up, put a skillet that can fit all three chicken pieces in it on the stove and put the heat to medium low. Add your olive oil and minced garlic. when its hot and "aromatic" (which means it smells good i think lol.. another cooking term i see everywhere) then add your spinach. something that trips me out about spinach is that when you put it on the stove, it looks like youre using way too much.. but then as soon as it cooks a little, it shrinks up sooo small! so fill up your pan with spinach.. like until you think its ridiculous. when the spinach begins to wilt, add your chicken stock. (after it begins to properly wilt, turn the heat to LOW)

Let it heat up a little and then add a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper and your bacon bits. (((if youre using real bacon, id cut it into little pieces before and sear it in the pan FIRST and then use the grease that comes off it to cook your garlic in... does that make sense?? i hope so :/))) Stir this all together until your spinach is very wilted. and btw, i usually super dislike anything healthy, but this spinach is gooOood! in fact id eat it without the chicken! :) and if you know me, thats saying something.

MEANWHILE, over to the chicken:  rinse your chicken and pat dry.. cut slits in the breast across the long side of the chicken.

back to the spinach: at the very end, throw in your cheese crumbles. stir them around for a couple minutes (turning the heat up to a solid Medium)
back to chicken: now bring the two together, and take little handfuls of the spinach/cheese mix, and stuff it into the chicken where you cut it before. pack the chickens as full as you can! (this part is beyond gross to me. so i had to bust out the gloves for it. raw chicken, wilty spinach AND cheese i dont eat :{ i almost couldnt do it) anyway, stuff the chickens.

then re-oil the pan that had the spinach in it. place the chicken in the pan and "sear" it. (i think searing means heating up a skillet and putting the food in it...?) anyway, turn the heat up to med/high and put the chicken in the pan. sprinkle one side of the chicken with salt and  pepper. (be kinda generous with the salt.. its more necessary than i ever thought when it comes to flavoring the chicken), then turn it over and sprinkle the other side the same. when the chicken looks brown on one side, flip it, and sear the other side. (this wont cook the chickens all the way through, but thats okay. we're getting to that :))

When both sides are brown and beautiful, take the chickens and place them on a cooking sheet (ALSO! cover the cooking sheet with aluminum foil before using it, it makes clean-up unbelievably easier!! so much easier that this extra step is worth doing!) put the chickens on the sheet and put them in the oven for 16-18 minutes.

i do not know how to check if chicken is done and im scared of the oven heat, so i very ungracefully take a huge long knife and hack an edge off from in the oven and look at it really closely and then eat it hah. its usually too hard to cut the chicken from so far away if its not cooked and tender- i havent poisoned myself yet lol

and ENJOY!!! :) dipak reeeally liked this one! he ate one and a half.. chickens! ... i was about to say breasts lol but i caught myself hahaha... humor of a child too :) loll

let me know if you try it! :) and how it turned out!