Stuffed Chicken and Chicken Salad

Wherein Mr. Ullman discusses the limitations of a whole fowl and Mr Broman draws a zombie chicken.

Fowl lends itself well to stuffing.  If you doubt this I suggest you
think about Thanksgiving.  While I do cook myself the occasional
Cornish hen this usually means a chicken breast.

The problem with a full bird is that it is very difficult not to waste a lot of it.  While you can use it both for dinner and lunch you have to devote your week to it. I rarely want to do this  so a chicken
breast it is-- two actually since I got a good deal and purchased four.  The second two were about to get freezer burn so you get a recipe and half here – the half being lunch over the next couple of
days.

Like two weeks ago this recipe includes Italian parsley.  I really cannot get enough of this stuff. It does not include kale which might be something of a relief to my six readers (Carl, my sister, maybe my
brother's wife, two unsuccessful spammers from the EU and myself.
There is a good reason why you don't see ads here.).

Ok, lets work the veggies and greens.  I took a half of tomato, a
goodly amount of the Italian parsley leaves and a shallot clove.
Roughly chop them all individually.  Put them all in the center of
your cutting board.  Vigorously chop them into finer bits so that they
mix up well.

Take the chicken breast you are going to eat tonight and slice it
through the center as described in my first post (a la chicken book).
Sprinkle some apple cider vinegar onto both sides. Put as much of the chopped veggies into the chicken as possible.  Close the book.

Take a  Pryex dish of suitable size and put some oil (dull vegetable
oil is fine here ) on the bottom of the dish.   Add a bit more of the
cider vinegar to the oil.  Note the word bit here.  If I were a
professional I would say “to taste” and it would still be a cop out.

Put the oven on broil and let it heat up.  Put both breasts into the
Pryex and use half whatever is leftover from the stuffing and put it
on the chicken breast you didn't stuff.  Cook for 15 minutes.

When the timer calls flip the chicken breasts over sprinkle a bit more
of the cider vinegar on the top (put the rest of the leftover stuffing
on the unstuffed breast).  Cook for ten more minutes and reduce the
heat to 350 while you spend five minutes steaming the asparagus and
making the salad (at 48 roughage isn't as amusing as it was when in
college).   Serve to yourself until you learn how to properly handle
apple cider vinegar.

By the way, the residue oil, chicken broth and cider can be used for a
great gravy but we will deal with this later.

So what to do with the second chicken breast?  Chicken salad for sandwiches!

Cut the chicken breast into strips and pull it apart.  It is usually a
good idea to do this the next day after the chicken has been cooked so
it has had time dry a bit in the frig.    Get a couple kosher dills
(vlasic stackers are my favorite) and chop to a desired thickness.
Cut up so celery and carrots!  Maybe a bit of fresh shredded garlic!
Hell, throw in a some of raisins!  Put this all into a mixing bowl,
add a squirt of a mild horseradish sauce and spoon in a tasty mild
mayo and fold, stir and worry until you have the desired consistency.
If you over do it add some cabbage to bring it back.

Place in the frig at least overnight, put on bread with a bit of
lettuce.  Make fun of your co-workers who went to Subway by noting
that anyone can be a foodie at lunch.  Lunch isn't something that you
share for Christ's sake.  It is simply about making something you
like.  How hard is that?  Be smug.  Share a bite if necessary.

More then you need to know about Pryex.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrex  I offer this simply to prove that
Corning Glass was once as interesting at 3M was in the 1960's.

Btw, Every time I get a box of veggies I search for how to properly store them. I am thinking about starting a page devoted to links to proper storage.