Chicken Be My Muse!

We spent a LOT of time working on the house last night so I'm taking a morning off.  Honestly, I'd be at Church right now but Darrin started volunteering in the middle school ministry so I'd have to go to the early service alone or he'd have to go to two back-to-back services - I'm not a fan of either option, so until we figure something out I'm watching the service online.  But I digress...

With all my "free time" this morning I'm trying to get my grocery list together and get my shopping done.  We have a nice little routine in the Lemmon/Overholt households - after Church on Sunday we go to lunch and then knock out our grocery shopping.  I try to only go to the store once a week - it saves me a ton of money because I don't pick up things I really don't need throughout the week!

I make my list by planning out our menu for the week, so I know exactly what I'll need to pick up.  This works really well for me and my need to be obsessively organized.  I love to cook and try and come up with fairly creative dinners for the nights Darrin comes over.  Right now I'm making us dinner 3, or maybe 4, nights a week.  In three weeks though, that's going to jump to SEVEN NIGHTS A WEEK!  Now I'm pretty creative and I can search recipe sites like a champ, but I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to come up with great dinners EVERY night of the week. 

My friend Kristen recently started a blog as well (http://notsodomesticated.com/) and posted a super simple, but really great looking idea for dinner, http://notsodomesticated.com/2011/07/01/slow-movin-bbq-chicken/, and I realized that her 6+ months have marriage have already made her an expert on the whole cooking for the hubby thing and that chicken dish became my inspiration!  I've always thought simple wasn't fun when it came to food (I'll post what I'm cooking for dinner below, which I think it's middle of the road creative/complicated-wise as for as what I usually make for dinner) but that slow cooker chicken looks yummy!  So yummy, in fact, that's going to be our 4th of July dinner (Thanks KP).  I think I'm going to try and make corn bread with bacon and jalapenos to go along with it (who doesn't love bacon and jalapenos, right?) and maybe sweet potato fries or roasted squash "fries."  Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

But that's tomorrow.  For dinner tonight I'm doing a stuffed chicken breast over whole wheat spaghetti.  I've made it once before and it turned out really well!  Darrin is the least picky eater ever - as long as he can't taste the egg!

Ingredients:
Chicken Breast
Package of frozen spinach (defrosted)
1 C. Ricotta cheese
LOTS of Mozzarella cheese (yes, LOTS is a cooking term in my mind)
1 egg white 
Bread crumbs
1 egg (beaten)
Sauce (I used homemade last time, but this time I'm using "jar sauce" which I liken to me spitting on my grandmother, but I just don't have the time to make sauce today)
Whole wheat spaghetti

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Pound out the chicken breast until they're about 1-inch thick (this is still the hardest part for me)
Mix the spinach (I only needed about 3/4 of the package), the ricotta, the mozzarella, and the egg white in a bowl.  Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon a fair amount of the mixture into the center of each chicken breast and roll up each piece.  (I had to use toothpicks to hold them together last time!)
Dip each piece of chicken in the beaten egg and then in the bread crumbs
Place seam down and bake, covered, for 25 minutes
Remove from oven and pour sauce over the chicken.  Return to oven, uncovered, and bake for another 20 minutes.
Start boiling the water for the pasta and then cook according to the package (just remember whole wheat pasta take longer!)
When the chicken is cooked, sprinkle with additional cheese and heat until melted.

Serve the chicken over the cooked pasta - add extra sauce if you want!

See, it's a tad too complicated to cook like that every night.  Anyone have any easy, but yummy, recipes to share?  Suggestions are always welcome...although maybe I should just start instituting "Leftover Night" - I'm sure that would save me a day or two of cooking!