PCAT - Baked Chicken with Broccoli and Cheese

After much deliberation on what to cook for dinner tonight, I came up with a dish that would serve two purposes: first is to satisfy my hubby bebe and second is to be good enough to be blogged about. Yes, it is another chicken recipe but what can I do, we love chicken.

Here is the list of what you will need:

• 3 pieces boneless and skinless chicken breasts
• American cheese singles, one slice per chicken breast
• 1/4 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup frozen cut broccoli, diced
• 2 Tbsp chopped onion
• ground black pepper
• salt (I personally use sea salt but regular iodized salt is ok)
• cayenne pepper
• dried oregano leaves

There are two ways to prepare the chicken. You can either slit open the side of the chicken breast to make a small pocket on the meat or you can butterfly it as shown in the picture below. (read: to butterfly is to cut and spread open)

Here is the rest of the procedure:

• 
  
  Preheat oven to 350 F.
• 
  
  Rub salt on both sides of the chicken. If you made a pocket instead of butterflying it, rub salt inside the pocket too.
• 
  
  Combine the broccoli and chopped onions in a bowl. Season with ground black pepper and dried oregano leaves. Mix thoroughly.
• 
  
  Divide the slice of cheese into two and put the first half in the pocket or on the middle section of the butterflied chicken. Next, put in the broccoli mix. Cover the mix with the other half of the cheese.
• 
  
  Secure the pocket opening with toothpicks. If using butterflied chicken, fold the side sections to cover the stuffing and secure the fold with toothpicks.
• 
  
  Put a dash of cayenne pepper on top side of the chicken and rub it. Rub oregano leaves on both sides of the chicken and put them on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with Pam (any cooking spray will do actually!).

• 
  
  Bake the chicken for 20 minutes. Take the chicken out of the oven and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Then continue baking for 15 minutes more.
• 
  
  Remove toothpicks before serving.

There you go. I hope you'll enjoy it.