A little formatting...

OK, so I'm going to try to organize how I make posts here. This isnt a rigid system, but if my posts seem a little crazy with bold and underlines going everywhere, maybe this will help.

Ingredients will be in itallics. This way you will catch all the important things like sasoning in the bulk of my anecdotal ramblings.

Bold means do something or take some action. I guess this way you can scan it and look at the mechanics of what I'm doing if you don't want to read the whole friggin post just to find out what temp I cook at and for how long.

I dont know if ill stick to this or not, but lets give it a try. I have a great stuffed chicken recipe that'll be up in a few days, just need to get some pics of the meal first. Stay tuned folks, good eats coming. Go make a PB&J if your waiting on me for cooking advice. Or just wait...

Southwest Stuffed Chicken Breast

I tossed this recipe together over two separate tries, and I'm pretty pleased with how it all came together. Anything stuffed into anything else is always a fun, crowd pleasing combination. Neat party trick, and once you get used to filleting a chicken breast you have a whole new world of cooking open to you.

Ingredients:

3 chicken breasts

1/2 medium white onion, diced (can be more or less to taste)

1 can diced tomatoes, drained (can be plain, or any variety with a Mexican/southwest flair)

1 small can diced green chilies

juice from 1/2 a lime

Mexican mozzarella cheese (skim or whole milk)

Seasoning:

sea salt

pepper

dill weed

oregano

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine onion, tomatoes and chilies in a bowl. You want the juice from the chilies, they add a nice zest and will go well with the lime we add later (for a milder flavor, drain the chilies and keep the juices from the tomatoes). Stir well, mixing in some oregano to taste.

With a sharp knife, carefully fillet chicken breasts, starting on the smooth side of the breast, leaving just enough flesh at the rougher side to keep the two halves securely together. Trim away any extra fat from the meat. Rub a little sea salt all over the outside before stuffing them.

Next, take a spoon and start filling the breasts with your tomato mix. You want them to be full enough to fill the entire fillet, but not so much that you cant neatly fold the meat back together. Depending on the size of your chicken, it will probably be about 2 tablespoons.

OK, now we are ready to get our stuff in the pan. You will want a pyrex baking pan that will fit your chicken breasts so they are just touching a little. Spread the remainder of your tomato stuffing on the bottom of the pan, and then place your stuffed chicken breasts on top.

Sqeeze the juice from your lime over the chicken, trying to cover it all. Dust the top of the chicken with some fresh ground black pepper.

Next, we cut the cheese. Mexican mozzarella usually comes in a round block, so I sliced it in half across the center to create a half-moon shape. I placed the flat of the moon on the cutting board, then sliced off about 1/8" at a time until I had three half moon pieces of cheese, one for each chicken breast. This goes on top of each breast, centered so they look nice and pretty.

Last but not least, dust the chicken and the cheese with a little dill weed.

Place in the oven, center rack, and bake till the internal temperature registers about 150 or 160 degrees, about 1 hour or so. After you pull it out of the oven, be sure to let the meal sit for about 5 or 10 minutes, and then serve the chicken breasts with a little of the bed of tomato stuffing under it.

When its done, the cheese will not be very drippy or gooey, but should have a nice golden singe across the top. There will be plenty of juices that cooked out of the tomatoes and the chicken, depending on the size of your pan, the fat content of your chicken etc (you could make a nice, spicy gravy out of this if you are so inclined).

I make this with black beans and rice on the side, and tortillas to soak up all those good juices. This would also go well with spanish rice (really any kind of rice - I LOVE rice), and maybe cornbread. This goes great with beer of course, but a nice fruity wine would probably go well with this, even a sangria.

Be sure to enjoy it with friends, loved ones, or even strangers. Food will always taste better with good company. Enjoy!

Biscuits

Being a Texan, I may be predisposed to them but i love good homemade biscuits.

Here's the recipe ive been using for self-rising Biscuits, culled from the internet:

Ingredients:
1/2 Stick of Butter
2 cps. Self-Rising Flour
1 cp. Milk

-Preheat oven to 425 degrees
-Mix flour & cold butter in bowl, combine with pastry knife or whisk until butter is in pea-sized chunks
-Add milk
-Mix well, knead until smooth
-Roll to 1/2" thick
-cut out biscuits using biscuit cutter or sturdy cup (3" or so across seems to me to be the right size for good biscuits)
-Place on greased pan, slightly touching
-Bake approx. 10 minutes or until fluffy and golden

Ive been trying to tweak my attempts since last thanksgiving, i had problems with flat, dry, crunchy ones that did ok but lacked that really satisfying fluff and crust. The recipe i found first called for 3/4 cps. of milk, but i found this to be too dry. I've also noticed that when the dough gets rolled out too thin it also makes for too dry a biscuit.

My last batch was the first time i increased the milk, and it ended up being two batches after i accidently mixed in twice the amount. The first round out of the oven were notably more moist but still not as fluffy as id like. The second half of the dough got put into a container and into the fridge. The next day i pulled it out and kneaded it some more, it was still pretty elastic so I let it rest about 5 minutes and then rolled it out. I did them a little thicker than i had before, probably closer to 1/2" now(think i got it too thin before).

The difference really showed, they rose 2-3 times more than they had before and were nice and moist. Still a little dense though, not quite the same airpockets i associate with really light biscuits. Next i want to try it again with the 3/4 cp. milk, the dryness earlier experienced may have come from rolling them out too thin. I need to work on kneading some more and letting the dough rest, im not very good with bread but that seems to have really helped the loft i got this last time.

More notes to follow as they come out of the oven next time...