My mission: To cook 5 recipes from Cooking Light Magazine each month.
I recently ordered a subscription to Cooking Light Magazine and I want to cook as many of the recipes I can. They have a great website that lets you search all the recipes in the magazine. Here are the 3rd and 4th dishes I prepared for the month of March:
Just looking at this recipe is intimidating. I have to slice open a breast and make a pocket, I have to use something called "panko" and I have use wooden toothpicks to seal in the filling. It's a little much for this culinary dope, but I must say: It was relatively easy! Just combining the parsley and mint with the goat cheese and the panko (which is a fancy way of saying bread crumbs by the way. I bought an Iron Chef edition of Terraki panko. I liked it.) in a small bowl was easy as could be. Slicing the chicken breast open was annoying because I thought I was going to just slice through the whole damn thing, but I actually did a great job. I stuffed the chicken with the mixture, however I used a half a cup more panko than the recipe called for. I like to taste crunchy more than gooey with my chicken. I then used the toothpicks and sealed them up as best as I could (which wasn't that good, but nothing tragic happened. It's nice to know it doesn't have to be perfect for this recipe to work). I seared the chicken on the stove top for about 5 minutes even though the recipe calls for less. The chicken wasn't brown. It was that white color that I hate from my chicken so I kept it on there longer. All the while the broiler was on high. I put the chicken on a baking sheet and put them in the oven browned side up which at first confused me but it turned out wonderful in the end.
The recipe says to cook it for 8 minutes on the broiler but I was afraid of undercooked chicken so I kept it there for about 12 minutes. Then I flipped the chicken breasts over and put them back on the broiler so the other side can get nice and crispy instead of soggy. The finished product was a moist chicken with a delightful filling that really made the dish something to remember. The pictures above really don't do it justice. Also, if you don't know how to make couscous you have problems. It's simple and easy and very tasty.
Verdict: I was concerned about this dish at first but it came together easily. I would recommend this dish to my friends and family. 4 out of 5 stars.
What's that? This looks a lot like my previous post? I have no idea what you are talking about. First off: New plating! The blue really pops doesn't it? All kidding aside this dish is a lot like my previous post with a modification or two. I took out the goat cheese and added pine nuts. Yeah, that's about it. If you're looking for something radically different Cooking Light has a nice recipe here but I had a half a carton of grape tomatoes in the fridge and I liked the taste of the asparagus last week that I couldn't resist. I also hate wasting food.
Verdict: Simple recipe and flavorful. I could eat a variation of this dish once a week this summer and I just might. 3 out of 5 stars.
