Disney Day 3 – Happy Birthday Claudia!!!!

We got up in time to get to the Magic Kingdom when the gates opened! We stopped at will call to get momClaudia’s free pass and her birthday pin!!!  Yeah!

We arrived at Downtown Disney with almost 2 hours to spare. We poked inthe shops, got samples at Ghiradelli’s, and even found the "10 dollar"store.

Dinner was at Fulton’s Crab Shack – momClaudia chose seafood for her big celebration!
Our server was very pleasant and teased momClaudia about singing for her and bought here a piece of cake for her birthday.

We had seats right by the window and got a mini fire work show over the hotels across the way! Yeah!

It was a really tasty dinner and I think a great way to celebrate momClaudia’s big day!!

So this started out as a Cooking Light recipe and then….

Well, I’m lucky that I can modify, substitute, and generally mess with a recipe with usually successful results…  Must be grandpa’s Italian heritage coming through the gene pool!

This recipe called for it’s own version of pesto with basil and parsley…  Well – I had cilantro cause i had made my most favorite Chili Cilantro Dressing…

But I knew I had a recipe for cilantro pesto and i could definitely use that here.

As I was gathering my ingredients I realized I had no pine nuts…  Hrmph.

I had no almonds…  Hrmph…

But I did have pumpkin seeds – remember the Chili Cilantro dressing???

So I substituted pumpkin seeds into the lovely recipe, added some red pepper flakes…  and whala – some garlic ridden yumminess that was green and would go great in my chicken spirals!

The original recipe called for pounding the chicken, putting in the pesto and then salt and peppering it.  That just would not do. So I pounded, salt and peppered, pesto-ed, rolled, added more pesto on top and then cooked!

My Chicken Pesto Spirals

2 chicken breasts

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 cilantro pesto recipe

Tooth picks

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375

Prepare small pyrex – coat with pam

Pound chicken breasts thin

Salt and pepper both sides

Put 1/4 of the pesto on each breasts (i don’t do just the middle, i hate having a piece of a roll with no filling – it get’s messy, but hey it’s worth it)

Roll breast, tuck in ends if possible, secure with tooth picks, put seam side down in prepared pan

Continue with second breast.

Put 1/4 of the pesto on top of both rolls

Cook for 15 minutes

Roll breast to other side, place last of the pesto on top of each beast.

Cook for 15 minutes.

It took almost 45 minutes for my chicken to be cooked all the way through – original recipe stated only 30 minutes – probably depends on how thin you pounded the chicken. I also had to chill my chicken for an extra hour in the fridge before cooking it. (timing was off on when dinner would be)  Just check the temp – 170 degrees.

Also take care with the pesto and don’t contaminate it with the spoon or what not that you touch the chicken with.

I really enjoyed the results, I added in some cheesy scalloped potatoes (from the box) and did another beer bread with diced green chilies, cayene powder on the cooked onions, coors lite, and nacho/taco cheese. LOVE this recipe – just throw in whatever you want!

So this is really for mom.

When she was here for christmas we made a joke about the homelss meters, and mom was intrigued. Of course after that mention, we never saw another to show her.

Here is what it looks like.

It is located on the inside of the sidewalks, as to not confuse those people parking on the side of the street!

Naked boy – fresh from a hair cut!

and

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STINA!

Ella has left the building…  :(

Ella has a new destination and a new place to explore! She is departingin the big brown truck and should arrive by the end of the week!

New years was pretty low key again. We like it that way!
We visited a friend’s local for make your own pizza’s, yummy wine, and this horrible came called pain point- catch phrase.

Basically it’s like 40 thousand dollar pyramid. but with this machine you have to hold that beeps and continues to beep faster and faster and then times up!! ARG! I did not want to play. I prefer watching games like that. Or at least be with people i know so i can use clues that we have a common thread on. But i had no choice due to my gender, apparently it was decided boys against girls was a fabulous idea… (yes i am being a big old baby!)

Hubby tried to help me (he wasn’t one of the chosen since they had enough of his gender),but he was too busy laughing at my inability to speak. We made it through plenty of rounds of that and then rung in the new year! Cheers,champagne and kisses! Yeah!  We left pretty soon after to beat the drunkards home.