Chicken Cordon Bleu.....ooh la la!!

Chicken cordon bleu can seem like a lot of work for dinner…what with the ham and swiss cheese inside the chicken that then needs to be breaded and fried.  We had a couple come over this weekend with their two girls and I wanted to think of a dinner that would be both kid-friendly as well as adult suitable.  This can be a challenge, especially when I wanted to be able to feed the kids first so the adults could later enjoy a relaxing dinner.

My mother and I came up with a quick and easy way to make chicken cordon bleu.  To start, take a chicken breast and slice it horizontally.  This gives you two breasts that are thinner and will take less time to cook.  You can pound the slices of chicken breast to make them even thinner if you wish.  Next, I took some leftover ham slices from a previous Sunday dinner ( I always freeze the leftover ham slices in a quart size bag) and placed it on half of the chicken breast.  I covered that with swiss cheese and folded it over.  Because you are not rolling it, you don’t need to use toothpicks to hold everything together. 
To bread the chicken, I mixed water and one egg together in a pie plate and bread crumbs (you can do half regular, half panko if you want a crispier chicken) in another.  I placed both sides of the chicken in the egg wash and then in the bread crumb mixture.  You can do this ahead of time and put it on a plate in the refrigerator covered with saran wrap until you are ready to cook them. I made a pea pod dish and rice pilaf ahead of time so I could just microwave them when I wanted to serve them.  The kids were starting to get hungry around 5:30 so I took a few pieces of chicken cordon bleu and put them on my George Foreman grill.  This is a must have in my kitchen.  I cover it with parchment paper for easy
clean up, add alittle olive oil, and grill the chicken for 8 minutes.  Done!  The kids loved them and when we were ready to eat, I just put the rest on the grill and after 8 minutes, they were ready and we enjoyed a fabulous dinner while the kids
watched a movie; a win-win for everyone!!  If you don't have an indoor grill, you can use a frying pan but you will have to flip the chicken after 4 minutes to cook the other side. 

So what to do with the leftover chicken cordon bleu????  Cobb salad anyone?  Simply slice the chicken vertically so you get strips of chicken, ham and cheese and lay it on the garden salad with whatever vegetables you prefer.  I love
to add hard boiled eggs as well.  If you want, you can pop the chicken in the oven on 375 degrees for about 15 minutes to crisp the outside and heat the inside before adding it to the salad.   Voila, two dishes….and I didn’t break the bank or take forever planning and making a meal I love for our friends.