I did it my way!!

On Monday night the kids come for tea and I quite often experiment with recipes I haven't tried before...most times they turn out good, sometimes I get "mmmm, not your best meal Mum!!"

I decided to try 'Bacon wrapped chicken stuffed with spinach and ricotta'. Once I had sliced the chicken breasts and combined the mixture I started to roll the breast, but had trouble with it.....so as I often do, I improvised and decided to line a slice tray with alfoil and lay the fillets out, then spread the mixture over them and topped it all with sliced bacon pieces.

I then covered it with alfoil (sprayed the alfoil first so the bacon didnt' stick to it) and baked in a moderate over for 1½ hrs. When I took it out the oven I had to drain juice that had accumulated but it was cooked beautifully and sliced really nicely (a bit like slicing lasagne!).

Everyone enjoyed it, so I thought I'd do a post about it as I find it's a good way for me to keep track of recipes I make!

The original recipe I was using can be found here. However I made some changes to the ingredients as well. I didn't cook the spinach first, just chopped the fresh baby spinach. I also didn't use the garlic, onion powder or garlic salt, instead I substitued it for a packet of french onion soup. Maybe because I didn't cook the spinach first I had some excess juice, but it still worked out ok and it tasted good.

Interesting picture I'm sure you're thinking!!  At Christmas time, I spilled some oil on my top (pictured). As it was only a couple of weeks old I wasn't impressed, so I googled how to get rid of oil stains from clothes and 'eucalyptus oil' seemed to be the popular problem solver, so I tried it and was really pleased that it worked!  I have many t-shirts with oil stains from cooking splatters, so I might give them a whirl with this too.

I don't particularly like the smell of Eucalyptus as it reminds me of 'Vicks' baths we used to have when we had colds. Fill a large bowl with very hot water, place a teaspoon of Vicks Rub (basically Eucalyptus oil) into it, place your head over the bowl and a towel over your head and the bowl and inhale. It actually worked wonders to clear your nasel passages and I used to use if for our kids as well.

Yay, our locally produced orange juice was back on the supermarket shelves today after their Christmas break. It tastes just like you've squeezed it yourself mainly because they don't add all the extras into it. The shelf life is only a couple of weeks and you have to shake it each time before you pour from the carton as the pulp settles, but it's healthy and not packed with sugar like so many others.

Hope you enjoy your weekend