Cooking Classes

So my cousin Salomon will come over and have dinner with us every once in a while.  He was over when I made the Mango Salsa and Tilapia.  He was in the kitchen talking to me as I made dinner, and he saw how easy it was to make tasty food.  So he asked me to teach him how to cook.  How could I say no when I get to call him my protege?!
I asked Salomon what he wanted to learn first; he wanted to learn how to make this fantastic chicken dish that my mom taught me how to make (many moons ago...).  It looks fancy, tastes great, and is easy to do if you have a little bit of patience.  Rudy and I went to the store and took Sal along with us so I could go over the ingredients for dinner.  Once we got home, the real learning began.

I showed Salomon how to chop potatoes, butterfly chicken breasts, make the cream cheese mixture, saute green beans, and make mashed potatoes with gravy (Sal loves gravy).  Because all the cooking was being done by someone else, I took this as an opportunity to exploit memorialize the help.

Butterflying a chicken breast.  

And then I asked him to cut all the way through.

Loading up the chicken breast.

Ready to get their bake on!

Whipping up some creamy mashed potatoes.

Working it at the stove.

We even at the table!  

I think it was something like the 5th time we have used it to eat at...

Even Lola joined us for dinner.

Ta-da!  The finished dinner!

Mamma's Bacon Wrapped Chicken

4 chicken breasts

8 slices of good bacon

8oz. cream cheese

4 green onion stalks, chopped

3 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbs. Tabasco sauce

8 toothpicks

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Butterfly open the chicken breasts, then cut them all the way through.  You should have now 8 chicken breast pieces.
3. Mix together the cream cheese, the green onion, Worcestershire, and Tabasco sauce.  You can add more or less of the sauces to please your taste.
4. Take one of your chicken pieces and place a spoonful of the cream cheese mixture in the middle of it.  Carefully roll the chicken around the creme cheese, making sure you don't squish the cheese out.  
5. Wrap a slice of bacon around the chicken and secure with a toothpick.  Transfer to a baking pan.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the remaining chicken pieces.
7. Place the chicken in the oven for 20 minutes.  The bacon should be a darker pink the the chicken should be golden around the edges.  Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before transferring it to a serving plate.

Great first lesson Salomon!