Julia Child I Am Not

We had to go to Target today to get bedding for ZoePig's cage, and since we were there, we decided to do the small amount of shopping we needed. $100+ later, we left the store with all sorts of strange and interesting dishes to spice up our daily eating.

On the way home, I decided that we should have fish with lemon-spinach couscous (out of a box) and steamed asparagus. Sadly, the fish that we bought was beer battered cod - better with tater tots than couscous. So we went to plan b - chicken.

I went online to find a chicken recipe with a sauce that only required ingredients we had in the house. So I found this one for spinach chicken (note: not my typos):

1 Onion; Chopped
2 Cloves Garlic; Minced
1 pack Spinach - Washed; (10 Oz)
1 teaspoon Lemon Rind; Grated
1 teaspoon Dried Mint Flakes
4 Chicken Breast; Skinless
¼ cup Old Cheddar Cheese; Grated
1 can Cream Of Chicken Soup

Saute onion and garlic in lightly olied skillet - 5 minutes Stir in spinach, lemon rind and mint, cook 2 minutes covered. Slice shicken lengthwise (not all the way through) starting at the thick side. Stuff each breast with 1 Tbsp. cheese Nestle chicken into spinach mixture with soup. Simmer covered 20 to 25 minutes.

Ooh! Stuffed chicken! But this recipe wasn't quite right for our ingredients. And if you're going to go to the trouble of stuffing chicken, why would you just stuff it with cheese? So I made my own:

1 pack frozen spinach, nuked for about 4 minutes
1 generous sprinkle of garlic powder
1 slightly less generous sprinkle of onion powder
4 cranks of fresh-cracked pepper
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
5 chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken and herb soup (because that's what we had)
a couple splashes of milk
some salt

So I mixed the first 5 ingredients and had Scott stuff a little wad of it (1-2 tablespoons) into the chicken that he had already sliced (you know... because I don't touch raw chicken) and then sprinkle some salt on the tops of the chicken breasts. We mixed the remaining spinach mixture into the soup and milk at the bottom of a baking dish, "nestled" the chicken into it, covered with tinfoil...

And now it's baking at 375. I must say, the spinach stuffing was quite tasty before we stuffed the chicken. I have pretty high expectations for it. And we're still serving the couscous and asparagus. If nothing else, it will be a well-balanced meal. And it'll definitely be something we haven't had before!