All credit goes to Nicole for this family favorite! When she and I were just lonely deployment wives passing the time in San Diego, we loved to have "New Recipe Night" dinners -- and ran across quite a few winners along the way. One of her discoveries was this delicious Chicken Florentine: Grilled chicken breasts stuffed with a fresh spinach, basil and Parmesan mixture.
For the filling:
In a food processor, combine 1 c. tightly packed spinach, 1/4 c. chopped onion, 3 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese, 1 tsp. minced garlic, and 6 large basil leaves. Place spinach mixture into a bowl, and stir in 1 c. fresh bread crumbs, 1 Tbsp. olive oil, 1/4 c. mayonnaise, 1/2 tsp. hot sauce and salt and pepper to taste (maybe 1/4 tsp. each?) I guess this could really all be done in the food processor, but for some reason I always just follow the original recipe's directions.
This should be enough filling for at least 5 chicken breasts, depending on how you decide to stuff them. I've tried a variety of methods...I used to roll them, but worried that the interior parts of the chicken may not be cooked as well. The easiest (but perhaps not the most attractive) is to use a sharp knife (thanks for the amazing knife, Mother and Daddy!) to split the breasts nearly through, then add the filling. Toothpicks are handy for grilling!
Although the chicken is great as is, we love serving it alongside pasta with homemade marinara sauce -- or even just with the sauce! Mmm...delicious!
we still make this all the time. It is still a family favorite. :) I am glad that Thomas loved those muffins. They are labor intensive. I haven't made those in years!
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