I was reading through some magazines while at the laundromat, and I came across a chicken recipe in an old issue of Cooking Light. I love to use chicken breast in my dinner recipes because it’s easy to make a quick dinner, and you can do a variety of things with it. This one is a riff on chicken cordon bleu, as my youngest son pointed out to me, where instead of ham and Swiss cheese you use spinach and ricotta cheese. And add wine. Good white wine – get a big enough bottle to use some in the recipe and have the rest of the bottle with dinner 🙂 If you don’t like to cook with wine, or you’ve got young children and don’t want to use it, feel free to substitute apple juice for the white wine – it will still turn out delicious.

This dish can easily be doubled or halved depending how many you’re cooking for and how hungry your diners are. Serve this with a nice side salad and some crusty bread, and you’ve got an easy, great-tasting meal. I decided to serve our stuffed chicken with some home-canned green beans cooked with bacon – yum!

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta

1 cup ricotta cheese

1/3 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained and squeezed dry

1 large egg

6 6-ounce skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1/2 cup dry white wine

To prepare the filling, combine the first 7 ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

To prepare the chicken, place each chicken breast half between two sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap. Pound each chicken breast to 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet or rolling pin. Divide the filling and spread it evenly over the chicken breast halves.

Roll the chicken up jelly roll style. Tuck in the sides, and place the chicken, seam side down, in a 13 x 9-inch baking dish.

Pour the wine over the chicken, and cover the dish with foil.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, basting the chicken a couple of times with the wine. Uncover and bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes, or until the chicken is done. Remove the chicken from the pan; keep warm. Strain the wine mixture through a sieve over a bowl; discard any solids. Serve the wine mixture over the chicken.

Yield: Serves 6

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