Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Roulades

I recently tried this recipe and it is so good and convenient that I immediately wanted to share it with you. (Just because I waited a week or two does not mean I wasn’t thinking of you.)

This recipe is fancy enough for company, but simple enough for everyday meals. It will only take an hour to prepare and bake if you start from scratch, but you can fix these ahead of time and freeze them. Thaw as many as you need while you’re at work then throw them in the oven when you get home.

The choice of filling(s) is up to you – whatever you’ve got & think sounds good will probably do. (I think peanut butter sounds interesting.)


BACON-WRAPPED CHICKEN


Ingredients:

• Boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1/2 - 1 for each person, depending on size of person & chicken breast)


• 1 raw bacon strip for each chicken breast


• Suggested fillings (per chicken breast):
  * 1 - 3 tablespoons whipped cream cheese - flavored if desired, such as chives & onions, garden vegetable. (Use up to 3 tablespoons, but 1 will suffice.)
  * ½ - 1 teaspoon butter (real butter only)
  * 1 thin slice of cheese – Swiss, Munster, Provolone, Mozzarella, etc.
  * 1 thin slice ham
  * 1 – 3 tablespoons frozen spinach, chopped & thawed.
  * A few leaves of fresh spinach
  * Some chopped mushrooms
  * Sprinkle of herbs, garlic, fresh rosemary or thyme sprig, a couple of fresh basil leaves
  * Jalapeno pepper or chopped green chilies
  

Directions:

1. Flatten chicken to ¼ - ½ inch thickness.


2. “Spread” with one of the first three fillings, then add one or two of the others; roll up into a bundle.


3. Wrap each bundle with a bacon strip (or two).


4. Place, seam side down, in a greased pan.


5. Bake, uncovered, at 400 for 35-45 minutes or until juices run clear.


6. IF desired, broil 6 inches from the heat for 5 minutes or until bacon is crisp.

To freeze: Prepare chicken as above up to and including step 3. Wrap each chicken bundle individually in plastic wrap then place in a freezer bag or container. Freeze. (The plastic wrap helps them hold their shape.)

To bake: Take out as many as you need for each meal and thaw overnight in refrigerator. Remove plastic wrap and bake as above.

Drop by Drop

Did you hear that some experts are saying that pigeon poop may have been a contributing factor in that horrible Minneapolis bridge collapse?

Pigeon poop had been building up for years on the bridge despite efforts to curtail roosting on the steel support beams.

It seems that pigeons don't pee so their ammonium wastes are crystallized and come out as the white stuff in their fecal droppings. It's highly acidic and quite corrosive to steel.

I've always said "It's the little things that wear you down."

Just about up to here

As I got older my tolerance for crap got lower and lower. Actually, I think that there's only so much crap one person can take and I reached my tolerance level a long time ago.

I really don't know if I'm just too sensitive, too intelligent, too intolerant, too caring, too demanding, too logical, just too too.

Sometimes I can look at the crap that surrounds me and think of it as fertilizer and other times I'm just too tired to see the potential for flowers. All I know is that it reeks and if I plant flower seeds, I'll just reap thistles because some dumbass will come along and stomp all over the seedlings.

Yeah, it's been that kind of a week.

Stupid TV has reached a new low

I'm not a big fan of "reality" TV though there are some shows I like to watch (So You Think You Can Dance and The Amazing Race). On the other hand, there's one show of this genre, Kid Nation, that I already hate and it hasn't even aired yet. I intend to boycott Kid Nation and I urge you to do the same.

Here's why:

1. I'm sure you've seen the previews since CBS likes to run at least one every other commercial period. I have noticed that anytime a television network feels the need to bombard us with messages extolling the virtues of a new show, it's because it stinks. So based on the number of promos, this one is a dead skunk of a show.
2. 40 kids on one show. There's bound to be 37 kids that you just want to smack, then visit their parents & smack them for good measure.
3. This show sets a bad, bad precedent of treating kids like merchandise. It appears that CBS broke multiple rules, laws, and regulations to make money off kids. And if they didn't, then we need new laws to protect children of parents who are too stupid or too money grubbing to do it themselves.
4. The kids were each paid only $5,000 for participating 40 days in what CBS likes to call a "summer camp". (That's how they got around child labor laws.) That makes them liars as well as cheap skates.
5. It's a stupid, stupid show and will encourage other shows that exploit children and will be even more stupid.

Isn't it time TV viewers get real and put an end to "reality" shows?

I like to pretend that I don't watch TV, but of course I do. I've been watching TV for over half a century now and it's kind of become a habit.

However, ............

I'm seriously thinking of giving it up. It's that stupid time between seasons when the major networks like to show stupid re-runs. I know it's really hard to tell the difference because it seems like there is nothing on but re-runs all year long.

I've heard that "the major networks" are worried that cable TV is stealing all their customers. So what do they do to woo us back to them? They show us re-runs of shows we didn't want to watch in the first place.

I'm too cheap to pay for cable so I'm going to have to get new glasses and start reading all the books I've been collecting. The problem with that is I have to think to read and as I said last session, my job sucks the life right out of me. I don't want to think when I come home from work. I've spent all day thinking about how much I hate my job.

I can't tell you the name of the company I work for, but at JobVent.com they score -160. That's right, negative 160.

See, it's not just me!

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

I don't really mean it, you know. I don't want you to stop me. I want to bitch and I want you to pay attention and say, "There, there. Everything's going to be OK."

I hate my job. It sucks the life out of me. Literally. Right out of me.

I don't know why. It's not really that bad.

But then, again, it's not really that good.

The job just sucks.

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." --Drew Carey

What's in a name?

Did you hear that somebody named a hurricane in the Pacific Flossie? Yes, Flossie!

I know, that's not an appropriate hurricane name. What were they thinking?

I need a little dream

... every now and then.

This is my horror-scope for next week.

You will get what you need very soon. The question is, will you recognise it. We can all identify what we want. That's obvious. If we don't feel a deep desire, a powerful passion, an undeniable urge, our level of 'want' is low. Our level of 'need', though, is another matter entirely. Often, we need things that we really don't think we want. And, of course, we want things that we absolutely don't need. So, just to be clear, it's a need, not a want, that's now about to be fulfilled. And, though you may or may not immediately feel like celebrating once this week's events unfold, it won't be long before you see how very blessed you have been.

It gives me a headache trying to decide if this is good or bad.

Whatever happened to "You'll meet a tall handsome stranger?"

Even though reality would be more like "You'll run into a short, stubby stranger. Hopefully, he won't sue you when you do." , I like to be given a little something to dream on from my fortune tellers.

Quiz shows

Did you watch the new quiz show The Power of 10 last night?

In case you missed it, the premise is that the contestant can win up to $10,000,000 by guessing what percentage of people answered silly questions in the given ways. The first time you guess correctly, you win $1,000. The next time they raise it by the power of 10 to $10,000, but the range in which you can be correct is lowered. For example, for $10,000, you have a range of 30%. Say you quess 12% - 42%. You win $10,000 if the correct answer is anywhere in that range.

With each question the range gets smaller and smaller while the amount of money you can win gets larger and larger. To win $1,000,000 you have a range of 10%, pretty narrow, but to win $10,000,000 you have to be exactly correct. (Do you think anybody would be fool enough to risk $1,000,000 with those odds?)

The contestant was a very pleasant, nice looking, likeable, 19 year old man who was trying to get enough money to go to med school. Everybody was rooting for him to win. And he did win - $1,000,000! (Contestant quote: "I didn't have enough money to buy gas, now I can buy a car!")

I swear the host, Drew Carey, seemed more excited than the contestant. (I think he was genuinely pleased for the contestant - I've seen Carey's sitcom so I'm pretty sure he's not that good an actor.)

I don't think the show will be a big hit. It doesn't have any catchy phrases like "Come on down!", "I'd like to buy a vowel.", "I want to use a lifeline." "Good answer!".

How will I know when I'm done?

I have finished my Advanced Fiction Writing course without advancing my novel one sentence.

The problem is, I can't do the beginning. When it was a movie, I knew what scene would play as the title and stars' names scolled by, but that scene doesn't seem to work in the novel.

In the middele of writing that last sentence, I got an image in my head of a man leaning on a counter talking to the receptionist at the used car lot. That wasn't what I had envisioned as the scene starting the movie, but maybe that's where Herb should be when the novel begins.

Blast this indecisiveness! I can't even decide if I'm writing a movie or a book, so how can I decide on a beginning?

This is a paragraph I used in the AFW lesson on settings. Do you think this would be a good beginning? Would it make you want to read more, or proclaim, "Bore-ring!"

As Herb approached the used car lot, he cringed, as usual, at the site of the garish turquoise paint peeling off the office wall. Faded plastic pennants fluttered halfheartedly over the dusty cars whose best days were miles behind them. He sidestepped around the broken curb as he bent to pick up some empty pop cans and candy wrappers. "Those young salesmen don't have any respect for this place," he thought to himself wearily. "And why should they?" he added as he surveyed the general shabbiness of the lot.

Goose, Goose, Duck, Duck

On my way home from work this evening, I saw a line of geese crossing the street single file from a grassy park to a small retention pond. There must have been two or three dozen of them and I thought I'd have to wait on all of them to waddle across before I could get home.

But these were street wise birds. I only had to wait a few seconds before the line stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and the last few geese in the street quickened their pace to clear the road.

I wish the drivers in this county were as polite.

OH, TOM..........

I just finished my Advanced Fiction Writing course. The instructor admonished us several times against the use of adverbs in our writing. Everytime he said that, I thought of Tom Swifties instead of taking him seriously.

Somewhere on this blog, is a whole list of Tom Swifties, but I just thought up this one yesterday: "That's a beautiful tree," she said woodenly."

Do you like, "There's no water in the well," Mike said dryly?
How about, "Let's light a candle," Wes suggested wickedly?
Or, "I'm going to swoon," Alice whispered faintly.

That's all. It was a short course.