No More Stitches!

Ten days later...Iivana's stitches are out! While there are still some juices seeping, we need to continue to clean the area with gauze and peroxide. The vet also prescribed more antibiotics to make sure the area properly heals. She is slowly recovering, but still has to wear her smelly e-collar.

Her paws are so dainty, her e-collar makes her body look not proportional. 

Last night's dinner was chicken cordon bleu, the first meal I made for Justin when we were dating. (And supposedly, the meal that won him over.) Except this version was of course GF.

Step 1: My least favorite part is cleaning the chicken breasts and pounding them. I pound them in saran wrap, so chicken doesn't fly everywhere. I hate dealing with raw chicken, I get so worried about contaminating other areas. I guess it's just like having celiac disease, no cross contamination allowed!

Step 2: I set up my work area. Pre-celiac diagnosis I would buy italian flavored bread crumbs. The GF bread crumbs don't have flavor. So I add italian spices, garlic salt, garlic powder, and seasoning salt. I don't really measure it out, but dump about a teaspoon of each in a bowl & mix it up. I had been using corn crumbs, but I found these brown rice bread crumbs to try. They were very powdery and fine.

I also melted half a stick of butter, set out some swiss cheese and ham, and had my pan ready. 

Step 3: It's easiest to form an assembly line, so you can grab the chicken, put a piece of ham and cheese on, squeeze and roll the chicken. Then I dip in the butter, followed by the crumbs. Lastly I put the rolled chicken in the sprayed Pyrex. 

Step 4: Bake at 350 for about an hour. 

I also serve my chicken cordon bleu with redskin garlic mashed potatoes and fresh green beans.

Everything tasted like an original good old homestyle meal. My only critique was that the rice bread crumbs were a little soggy. They weren't a crisp outer crunch that I would expect. Maybe next time, I'll try less butter.

Now I'm off to read my TAKS instruction manual for tomorrow. My students take their math and reading Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) this week. Standardized testing is so fun...