Stuffed

The rainbow chard at the Market was not quite as colorful as the beets...but still pretty: rich, dark green leaves, heavily textured and veined with either magenta, yellow or cream. After all the beets, spinach and peas I wasn't much in the mood for another plateful of veggies. I Googled "chard + chicken" and found a nice recipe for chicken roulades with chard stuffing.

Now there was a time when I'd toyed with the idea of writing a food blog. I abandoned it. Here's why: I wing it. In crazy ways. I didn't have much in the pantry and didn't feel like going shopping again. So I adapted the recipe using leftover trail mix I got from Target. Really. It's not as strange as it sounds. Promise. 

The nuts are an appropriate substitute for the chestnuts regularly used in stuffing. And raisins are often a recommended accompaniment to chard. So, there was dried pineapple in there too. And sunflower seeds. And 3 different kinds of nuts. And coconut. The more the merrier I say.

 Saute the chopped leaves and stems in olive oil, add some orange juice and simmer until very wilted. Move all that to a food processor and let it sit there while toasting the trail mix in the dry pan. Add it to the chard mixture, toss in some parmesan cheese and torn pieces of Italian bread. Pulse everything a few times. Smash your chicken breasts, spread with the stuffing, roll and tie them. Fry the roulades in a little butter and olive oil just to brown on all sides, then bake {350ish} to cook the chicken through. Slice it up and serve with some beautiful roasted baby carrots. Good stuff.