Nights when Treasa gets home from work later than usual give me time to try things in the kitchen. This, while not crazily adventurous, was fun to make. I had marinated a few chicken breasts in Italian dressing for two days, and sliced them in order to open up a pocket in each cutlet. I stuffed them with seasoned Japanese panko breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, fresh parsley, onion, garlic and various spices. The fresh parsley is key. It gives it a sharp parsley-ey flavor that works really well.
As a side, I made one of my favorites and corn. One box of orzo cooked in chicken broth with chopped spinach. I used the frozen spinach. You can find Green Giant plain spinach on sale for little more than a dollar and it’s easy. I nuke it to thaw, then sauté lightly with garlic and onion (and various spices) to perk it up a little.
As you can see in the mightily bad cell phone picture, we had the fire ablaze. We were being stubborn and had not yet turned the heat on. The house was chilly. A hot meal on the living room table, fire and wine were sure to fix that.
Oh, the wine. The Robert Mondavi Private Selection Sauvignon Blanc was pretty good. Maybe al the flavor from the meal over powered it slightly, but it was refreshing. We only had a few sips with the meal as we were both so hungry we ate without chewing, let alone enjoying wine.
The fire got the living room up to a nice toasty temperature. So much that we cracked the screen door to the balcony, which, in our post wine state, we forgot to shut before retiring for the evening. When we awoke to a house that was 56 degrees the following morning, combined with the season’s first frost, there was little I could do but acquiesce to the wife and turn the heat on.
