Life is too short to Stuff

So I'm feeling a lot better due to a hefty dose of anti-biotics - thanks for asking!  Back to cooking for me and them and tonight's offering was Easy Open-faced Chicken Cordon Bleu - Page 105.  Yet another one with no photo to guide me - boo hiss.  According to Giraffe life is too short to stuff and there isn't much difference between folding and stuffing.  So with that in mind off we go!

I'm not a huge fan of chicken breasts - find them a bit dry - I'm more of a thigh girl, so that probably isn't the best of starts.  You have to bash them out with a rolling pin which is quite theraputic so thats a bonus.  Stress relieved, you then "layer and fold" and shallow fry for 5 mins on each side.  You'd have food poisioning if you only gave them that long - I'd reccomend longer.  Perhaps even searing them in a pan and transferring to the oven to ensure thay are fully cooked through.  Raw chicken = not a good idea.

You are supposed to serve up with a lemon wedge the juices from the pan - but there weren't any (only gooey/crusty cheesey bits) so I opted for stir fried greens & bacon and carrott & butternut squash mash.

It looked odd, tasted good, but I still prefer my juicy thighs so if I were to make it again I'd use the same ingredients and adapt.  Stuff the thighs with the Gruyere cheese and spinach and then wrap in the parma ham to secure before roasting in the oven.  Not Cordon Bleu by any definition, but I think it would work better for me.

Cous Cous Cakes by any other name

So what to make next?  I'm a bit cheesy in many ways so really liked the idea of these cous cous cakes made with Halloumi Cheese.  They are infact Spinach & Halloumi Cakes (with Spiced Tomato and Currant Chutney) - Page 43  I was way too lazy to make the accompanying chutney :-o  A slight error in composing my shopping list meant I only bought a pack of cheese weighing 225g so didn't have the 400g specified for the recipie - doh!  So I did half quantities and it turned out pretty darn good.

Now... the recipie says it will make 8 cakes.  I made half a quantity and got 10 cakes - go figure!  For any fish cakes/burgers etc I always use my trusty Burger Maker from Lakeland - wouldn't be without it. It really squashes the ingreedients up and keeps them in shape so they aren't falling to pieces in the pan.

Girl refused to eat it - but she refuses most things that aren't sweeties.  The rest of us loved them and I had two leftover ones for brekkie!  Now that is cheesy...