Dinner Guest

I've never been much of a mathematician, so I'll not even venture a guess on how many meals I've put on the table over the years.

The majority of those meals, of course, served my family. We live 15 minutes from the closest town. We don't eat out much.

So it was quite a treat to be the guest and not the cook when we visited Jill and Eric last weekend. Jill is a fan of Kraft Foods recipe website. For one of our meals, she served Bruschetta 'n' Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Breasts from that website.

Man, I'm glad I taught that girl to cook ... Yummy!

Here's the recipe:

Bruschetta 'n' Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts

1 can (14.5 oz.) Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained
1 1/4 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 pkg. (6 oz.) stuffing mix for chicken
8 small boneless, skinless chicken breasts (2 lbs.)
1/3 cup Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian with Parmesan Dressing

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix tomatoes, 1/2 cup cheese and basil in medium bowl. Add stuffing mix; stir just until moistened.

Place 2 chicken breasts in freezer-weight plastic bag; pound to 1/4-inch thickness.

Remove from bag; place, top sides down, on cutting board. Repeat.

Spread chicken with stuffing mixture.

Roll chicken breasts up.

Place, seam side down, on 13- by 9-inch baking pan.

Drizzle with dressing.

Bake 40 minutes or until chicken is done (165 degrees F). Sprinkle with remaining cheese; bake 5 minutes or until melted.

Serves 8.

Prep time: 15 minutes.
Total time: 1 hour

Recipe Notes:

Jill didn't have whole chicken breasts. They used chicken tenderloins because that's what they had. They used the same procedure; it just made more roll-ups, and it didn't take quite as long to bake.

Eric is the chief "pounder" at their house, mainly because they need a meat mallet. Yes, it's on their Christmas list, but for now, Eric has been pounding the chicken breasts with a big metal spoon. He's kind of handy to have around that way.

They also had some pork loin in the fridge. Eric also flattened some of the pork loin and Jill made roll-ups with that meat as well. Both meats were yummy!

Jill has also made a variation of the original recipe.

For South-of-the-Border Chicken, make these substitutions, also from the Kraft website: Use diced tomatoes with bell or jalapeno peppers, Mexican-style shredded cheese instead of mozzarella cheese and chopped cilantro instead of basil.

Enjoy ... even if you don't have someone else to make it for you!