Italian Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Marsala Mushroom Gravy - East to make - Low Carb

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Marsala Mushroom Gravy

 Spice up those Chicken Breasts and Impress your friends and family!

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breast

To be quite honest, my family prefers the dark meat. I'll cook a whole chicken and the breast meat is the last to be eaten. So the last time I had a whole chicken I got some inspiration and came up with this recipe and I impressed myself and my wife. I filleted the breasts, set them aside and cooked the dark meat for another dish.

4 Chicken Breasts boneless and skinless
Cream Cheese
Italian Salami and/or Pepperoni
Italian spice mix
1 Cup sliced mushrooms

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breast - seasoned and ready to roll!

1 cup roughly minced onions
1/2 Cup Marsala Wine
1/2 Cup heavy cream
Bamboo skewers
Olive Oil

Start by flattening and tenderizing the Chicken Breasts. Placing the breast between 2 sheets of plastic wrap will keep the  meat juices from spattering. If you fold the plastic wrap over, be sure to leave enough space on all sides of the chicken breast to allow for the flattening and expansion. A smooth surfaced meat tenderizer

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breast - cut the skewers

works best. If you have one of those little hammers that's rough surfaced on both sides, you can turn it sideways to a smooth surface. You can separate the chicken tender from the breast and place it beside the thinnest part of the breast. Pound the chicken breast out to roughly twice the size, roughly 1/4" thick. Remove the plastic wrap and season the top of the pounded chicken breast well with the Italian spice mix. Examine the breast and determine the best way it should be rolled. Place slices of salami and/or pepperoni on the edge of the breast where you're going to start rolling from. If you placed the chicken

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breast - browned in the skillet

tender beside the breast when you were pounding it out - start from that end. Cut the cream cheese into strips about 1/4 wide and lay one layer of strips at the base of the row of salami. Now roll the chicken breast from where you placed the sliced salami, toward the opposite end. It can be a little tricky to start, especially with the chicken tender. You'll get the hang of it. Now that you have it rolled. Take your bamboo skewer and place it at the end of the roll and skewer from that end almost all the way through, leaving about 1" of skewer end poking through. Use kitchen sheers or you can simply break the

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breast -Marsala, Mushroom, Cream and Onion

skewer off on the long end leaving approximately 1" sticking out of the other side. Use the remainder of the sharpened skewer to do the same thing to the breast about 1" to 2" from the original. Keep the skewers horizontal instead of random.  You should be able to get 2 to 3 good skews per skewer. Do this for all 4 breasts.

Place some olive oil in a large skillet, over medium heat, once the oil is hot, place the stuffed chicken breasts in the skillet, and brown them, 4 to 6 minutes on each side. When the breasts are cooked all the way through, place them aside on a serving platter. Remove the skewer pieces, by gently spinning the skewer first to break it loose then pull them out.

Add olive oil to the skillet if it needs it, turn the heat up to a medium high, let the oil get good and hot and add the mushrooms and onions, stirring occasionally. When the mushrooms and onions start to brown and become translucent add the Marsala wine and cook until the wine reduces by half. Once the wine has reduced, add the heavy cream and heat through. When done pour over the top of the stuffed chicken breasts. If the breasts have cooled too much, you could pop them in the microwave for a minute before topping with the Marsala mushroom mixture.
Enjoy!
 

Teriyaki and Garlic Glazed Edamame

Teriyaki and Garlic Glazed Edamame!

Teriyaki and Garlic Glazed Edamame makes a great appetizer or finger food side dish.

This quick and easy recipe will have you and your guests licking their fingers, wanting more. 

Edamame are immature soybeans in the pod. Commonly found in Asian dishes. I've been in several

Teriyaki garlic glazed Edamame

Japanese Restaurants that serve a bowl of steamed edamame to munch on when you are seated. They're a healthy snack, and I commonly turn to them when I'm making finger food for dinner. It's much easier to put down your chicken leg and pick up an edamame pod, extract the beans, and go back to your chicken leg. My favorite recipe for them is with a Teriyaki and Garlic glaze. Edamame in the shell are often found in the frozen vegetable section of grocery stores. One pound should serve four people as a side dish or more people as an appetizer. The can be server warm or cold.

1 Pound Edamame in the shell
1/4 to 1/2 cup of  broth (Vegetable, Chicken, or Beef) or water
2-3 cloves of garlic minced
1/4 to 1/2 cup Teriyaki Sauce

In a large sauce pan over medium heat, put the edamame in the pan with the broth or water - this

Teriyaki garlic glazed Edamame in the pan

liquid is to simply help thaw the edamame, after a few minutes when it looks like the edamame is starting to thaw, add the Teriyaki sauce and garlic. Stir occasionally to cote the pods, when the broth or water has evaporated and the Teriyaki sauce starts to thicken and become sticky. They're done! Each Teriyaki sauce is different - besure you buy Teriyaki 'Sauce' and not marinade which is much thinner. As the liquid starts to evaporate, start turning down the heat so you can gauge the thickness of the sauce and prevent burning.
Serve hot or at room temperature. An Asian style bowl or small dish adds to the theme. They're eaten by grasping the pointy end of the pod, placing the entire pod in your mouth and pulling the pod back out of your mouth while gently clamping down on the pod enough to cause the pod to split and the beans to remain in your mouth.

Finger Food Dinner: Teriyaki garlic glazed Edamame, breaded pork medalions, grilled trout, crab quesadilla.

An empty bowl for discarding the pods is a handy addition.