Hey there...

I hate to cook. Unfortunately, due to society dictating gender roles, or simply the fact that my family may just become retarded the moment they step into the kitchen, or simply because there are times I want to eat and don't want to rely on frozen pizza, it falls to me to make meals. I'm creative, so I have come up with some interesting things to make that taste good, keep the family from openly weeping in hunger, and are super fast so I can get the hell out of the kitchen.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Stuffed Chicken Breast with Blank and Blank


AKA: OMG! I got roped into cooking for a bunch of freeloading guests!
 (See “Blank alerts” to figure out the blank and blank part)
This recipe is super easy and I’ve had many people truly believe I know what I’m doing in the kitchen after eating it. You can easily make it for one, two, or seven people (although if you’re cooking for seven people you are not slacking successfully).
Blank = a couple o’ things:
I say this because this is one of those recipes that you can mess around with to get different flavors. You cannot have this exclusively all week though. I tried that and was shut down pretty quickly by a family that can sometimes get wise to my wile-y dinner ways. 

Stuff you need to have:
1.    3 chicken booby halves. (or the same number of however many people you have to feed)
2.    1 can of Cream of mushroom soup. (1 can per 4 half breasts, or two whole ones, or 8 quarters… do the math.)
[BLANK ALERT!!] OR Cream of Chicken, Celery, Or other creamy type soup stuff.
3.    1 & ½ cups of Stove Top type Instant Stuffing. (1/2 cup of stuffing per boob)
4.    ½ cup of sliced water chestnuts. - You’ll find these usually in the veggie isle... cus’ some moronic bugger named it a NUT, but really it’s a veggie... which is good source of dietary fiber, riboflavin, vitamin B6, potassium, copper, and manganese. ** Good to know... Why? Cus’ then you sound smart and like you care about what you put into your body as well as the bodies of the people you’re feeding.
[BLANK ALERT!!!] Or Apple slices, which tastes really good when using the Mushroom soup, or actual mushrooms, celery, or raisins. Personally, I really like apples and raisins added in, but it freaks some people out.
5.    *1/2 cup of white wine, any kind will do.
6.    Pepper/Salt
7.    Bag O Salad
8.    Tube-O-bread (Pillsbury Italian Bread)
*Nice to have, but not totally needed
Other stuff needed:
1.    Glass pan (Pyrex type)
2.    Cookie Sheet covered w/Tin Foil
3.    Tin foil
4.    Toothpicks
5.    A Meat Mallet, or *something hard and bappy you don’t mind beating the crap outta something with.
6.    Hands
7.    Cutting board (HINT: Wrap the cutting board in Press & Seal for this one… quicker cleanup)
8.    *If you don’t have a mallet and you use something hard and bappy, such as a soup can, hammer, hard plastic mug or a rock, it’s a good idea to place some waxed paper over the meat. So… having waxed paper or even some old cloth is a good idea, but not utterly necessary.

Preheat oven to 400. 

 [STUFFING]
Make the stuffing according to the directions on the box of stuffing mix. Typically I say add a wee bit more butter than it says to.
Add the Water Chestnuts (or apples/raisins/celery/mushrooms)
Mix all together
Set aside.

[CHICKEN]
(First, if I haven’t said this before, channel your inner OCD’r… Rinse chicken with cold water and pat dry with paper towels before preparing so you don’t end up eating something that will make you have the liquid poop.)
The following needs to be done for each chicken breast. Yes, all of them. Don’t leave some of them undone, hoping your guests will not notice. They will. They’ll be perplexed, yes. They may not SAY they notice, but they will. Unless of course one of your guests is really stupid. Then I say just slip them some cat food and be on your way. Although why you have stupid people over for dinner is beyond me. WAIT… unless that’s because you’re having them over as a form of entertainment! That would make funny, funny sense. Or perhaps you plan on playing toss food at the stupid person’s face during dinner... which I guess would be listed under “entertainment” so never mind. Anyway…
Breast Augmentation: Beat the crap out of the chicken. Place the chicken breast onto the cutting board; use the smooth portion of the mallet to beat the chicken flat. Not paper thin, but approximately ½ inch thick. Put aside till all chicken is beaten and taught a lesson. (Seriously... it was just askin’ for it!)
Spray a wee bit of PAM into the bottom of your pan (again, glass Pyrex dishes rock)
Lay out one of the defeated/humiliated chicken boobs on your cutting board and spoon in a good amount of the stuffing. You want to be able to have the two ends of the chicken be able to meet.
i.e: (one end of chicken) ß----(STUFFING)----à (other end of chicken)
Fold over the chicken the long way and use a tooth pick to secure the ends together.
Put the chicken into the Pyrex dish and continue to do this to each poor tortured breast until they’re all done and sitting snuggly into the dish.
There may be some stuffing mix left. If so, place into the dish around the chicken pieces.
Open the soup and mix with the ½ cup of white wine. If you don’t have the wine, no biggy (weird, but whatever) just use the soup as is.
**You may need one of those rubbery/plastic-y spatula things to mush the soup around.**
Cover it up: Make sure you get all the chicken meat covered with the soup stuff. Why? Cuz.
Sprinkle some Salt/Pepper on top.
Cover with tin foil.
Pop into the cooker.
TIMING: This is important. Because I don’t know …
a)    how many breasts you’re cooking
b)    how thin you may have pounded the things
c)    how well your oven works
… the timing on these will vary A LOT.  Typically for the three breasts I cook it takes about 45 minutes. There have been times where I haven’t really had a lot of aggression to take out, and haven’t pounded them as thin and it’s taken up to 55 minutes. SO... let’s discuss how you’ll know if the chicken is done. This is important because salmo-fuckin’-nella is gross. You’ll end up cleaning nasty toilets and taking care of yourself, your family, and perhaps out of town guests (EWW!!) which will mean more work/cooking/time spent on others. So pay attention to this and make sure you get it right.
Best Method: Buy a meat thermometer (a nice one is about 15 bucks) and insert into the thickest part of the chicken (remember, this is stuffed, so make sure it’s in the CHICKEN, not into the center where the stuffing is). You want the temperature to be 165 degrees. 
**This is done by people who like to cook… and as you know; people who LIKE to cook are sick minded individuals. Such people need watching… preferably from a safe distance. So use caution.
Slacker method, which will work, but makes the chicken not as pretty: Select the thickest piece of chicken, cut into it and look at the meat. Is it pink? Pinkish? Kinda pink? It’s not done. Is it white? It’s done. (Try not to cut the breast much, it will make the juices run out and cause it to be dry)
For the purpose of this recipe, I’m saying that we’re going to time this at 45 minutes, BUT since you have other stuff to cook, set your timer for the following:
Set timer for 25 minutes

While you wait…
If you have guests over, I’m assuming you’re doing something entertaining. If not, let me suggest a few things that are amusing;
1.    Dirty Scrabble: This is where you get an extra 10 bonus points for spelling something horribly dirty. You can decide your own rules, of course, but personally I like the ‘no rules’ rules... meaning no matter how down and dirty it is, if you can spell it, you get uber points for it. The entire group does have to agree on it though. You can’t come up with something like “Bloppinspooge”, which NO one has heard of, and then try and pass it off as something that happens if you masturbate in a sub-compact car. (Note to self; start using the term “Bloppinspooge” around friends in order to make it seem like a real word, so that eventually I can use it during Dirty Scrabble) Dirty Scrabble rules also works with many other games, such as Scattagories, Pictionary and Boggle.
2.    Drunken Uno: Nothing says fun like a bunch of lushes and some Uno cards. Let me tell you, if you’ve had 9 Butter Shots (ask me how to make these, sometime.YUM), remembering to say Uno when you have one card is tantamount to spontaneously having the ability to stuff your own elbow into your anal cavity. It just ain’t happening without help, yanno? SO, basically, if you have to draw cards because another player has hit you with one of those “draw 2” or “draw 4” cards, you have to drink the appropriate number of shots to go with it. You’ll all be falling over and probably burn your chicken... but you’ll not care really. (Btw... if you burn down your home because of this game, I am NOT held responsible. That’s all on you. You’ve read my stuff, why would you take advice from me)
3.    Paddle PomPoms: Get ping pong paddles and a pompom cat toy. Honest… it’s wicked fun. I bought ping pong paddles at a yard sale and we’ve had a great time slapping the pompom around. (Note to self; use “Slapping the pompom” as a sex euphemism and use in conversation with friends so that I can win at Dirty Pictionary.) If you don’t have a cat, get one. If you don’t have a pompom cat toy, you can go for a soft Nerf ball type thing, but they tend to bounce a lot. CAUTION: DO NOT USE A RUBBER SUPER BALL. I’m serious. Don’t. Just. Don't.
4.    Dating Disasters: If you have Comcast cable, look under “get local” for the dating videos. They’re hysterical. It’s like a freakin’ train wreck. Also, wicked funny if your guests happen to have a video on there. Heh... LOSERS!
Ooooh k.

25 minutes later; reduce the oven temp to 350.
[BREAD]
Take out a cookie sheet. (Personally I go for the foil cookie sheets, 3 for $2.49 at the grocery store, cus you can toss them out if you happen to get stuff stuck on them that you don't wanna clean)
Cover in tinfoil (Trust me, I'm making your life easier... recycle other stuff and stop being a martyr in the kitchen, k?) 
Spray with one quick spray of Pam cooking spray.
Open the Italian Bread and follow instructions on the cover (that's if you haven't ripped the instructions all to hell while attempting to pull it off the tube)
Put the bread in the oven.
Set the timer for 30 minutes.
Go off and do something fun. Discuss the possibility of contracting projectile leprosy. That will either give you and your guests something funny to talk about for a wee bit, or it will make your guests stare at you with that blank look (I get it A LOT) and you’ll know never to hang out with these squares again, daddy-o.
BEEEEP
Remove the bread from the oven.
Checkin’ Da Chicken: [Notice I did not say remove the chicken… because at this point you are to check the chicken using one of the two methods I wrote about above.]
If the chicken checking goes well, remove the chicken.
OR
If it needs more time, put it back for another 10 minutes.

[SALAD]
Open the bag of salad
Wash the bag of salad (see ‘open’ first, don’t wash the actual salad bag. That would earn you a ‘FoodTarded’ award.)
***Salad Hint:
Bagged salad is super easy, BUT... clean the stuff before eating. I saw this thing on TV once about how they’ve found rodent feces in bagged salad. Is it true? NO FUCKING CLUE!! BUT SWEET TAP-DANCING CHRIST! RAT FECES!! Ok... yeah... so dump the salad in a strainer and use the sink sprayer doo-hicky to clean it really well.
Stick cleaned salad into a big bowl. 



If you’re at all OCD, toss a paper towel or clean kitchen towel over it so you can be totally sure that no cockroach or spider or alien-that-wants-to-take-over-your-brain bug gets in it.
Set aside till dinners all ready.
 DINNER'S DONE!

When the chicken is done: remove each breast carefully and place on plates. Once on the plate, REMOVE THE TOOTHPICK. That’s a very important step. Don’t forget it, please.
Spoon a bit of the soup on top of the chicken and add a bit of the extra stuffing onto the plate
Place a nice bit o salad on the plate, or even better, put it in some nice wooden salad bowls you got as a wedding present, but you hardly ever use, so they sit on top of the refrigerator gathering dust and wishing they’d get used once in awhile, but NO… YOU have to be so abrasive that you have no friends, hence; the poor bowls never get used and are wasting their youth on the punch bowl sitting next to them that gets no use, either.. so all they can do is sit and discuss what a selfish jerk you are, and how you never think about your bowls…
I digress….
Cut the bread and place into a nice basket.
Serve everything.
Tell everyone that you slaved over this meal and you expect to be the winner of Dirty Scrabble.

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