Ah yes… It’s been a while since the first Q-Treats. To be honest, I had about three dishes documented visually and ready to write articles on. However, an upgrade to the newest version of OSX and somehow messing up my backups left me without those pictures as well as a few other things. Ah, well, such is life in geekdom.

However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thinking up things to cook… In fact, this will be the first of three dishes I’ll be bringing you in the next couple of weeks. This recipe was an experiment for dinner a few days ago and it turned out pretty well.

Oh, and it’s pretty easy! There’s a little bit of work involved, but you’re not going to spend hours in the kitchen over this one.

So I bring you…
Italian Chicken Rolls

For this dish, you’ll need the following things:

• Sliced pepperoni
• Grated mozzarella cheese
• Minced garlic (this can be bought in jars already minced for you and will last a long time)
• Dried basil, oregano and parsley
• Salt and pepper
• Butter

The first thing you’re going to need to do is to pound out your chicken breasts, smooth side down. You’ll want to get the breasts as thin as possible without tearing them, and somewhat rectangular.

For those of you who don’t have meat mallets at home, you can use a heavy cup or glass. (I used a heavy plastic drinking glass.)

Once this is done, season the breasts with salt and pepper and sprinkle on the herbs and garlic. Next, lay a line of pepperoni across one side of the breast, followed by a line of the mozzarella. Then, starting on the edge with the pepperoni, roll the chicken breast up so that the pepperoni and cheese are inside.

If at this point you find the breasts won’t stay rolled on their own – they sometimes will – simply use toothpicks to hold them in place.

Season the outside with salt, pepper and the same herbs – minus the garlic. Then, in a skillet on medium to medium-high heat, brown the outside of the roll in a little butter on all sides.

Once they’re browned, place them on a cookie sheet covered in tinfoil and put them in the oven at 400°F for 10 minutes. (I used a toaster oven.)

Just a note here for you all to remember that different ovens cook differently depending on whether they’re gas, electric, how old they are, etc. So before eating these, it would be a good idea to temp them and make sure that they are at 160°F.

Once you’re sure about the temp, plate and consume.