August 28, 2013

Herb Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Wilted Green Beans

There are few scenarios that rain on a home cook's parade like fixing dinner after an exhausting day of work. In my experience weeknight cooking has not been the hobby type of pull-every-gadget-out-and-labor-hours cooking but the I-just-got-home-and-everyone-is-hungry-NOW type of cooking. Oh, yeah. Been there, survived that.

With the back-to-school bustle underway, this herb stuffed chicken breast recipe is a great solution to quick weeknight cooking. I've only made it a handful of times, but it's so simple that I don't even use the recipe anymore. You can easily play around with different herbs and specialty goat cheeses. (I recently tried a peppadew variety on closeout at Kroger.) And if you're not up for experimenting, the recipe (click here for the original) will do just fine. 



Now, is this a first class dish? No, it's not. I would love to tout this picture perfect meal otherwise, but I've been let down by the hoity toity descriptions of too many recipes to likewise disappoint (ahem, deceive) other home cooks. What I can say is that it's a great standby. It feeds hungry tummies. It uses ingredients you may already have on hand. And it can be thrown together in about 30 minutes. Oh, and since it's from Cooking Light, it's around 300 calories per serving. 

August 10, 2013

Vanilla Cream-Filled Doughnuts

Nothing says Saturday morning like doughnuts. 


Growing up, Saturdays meant catching up on chores and errands that had been put off during the work week. This was particularly true for Dad. He could often be seen hauling firewood up to the woodshed, repairing the tractor, or puzzling over a project in the granary. Occasionally, we'd all chip in with bigger  projects like chucking wood off the wagon just returned from the woods.