So, most of you know that I have a tough time following recipe directions.  Last night was not anything new.  I had to come up with some idea for supper and had to do it quickly as Sherry was due home within the hour.  We had some left over chicken from when I smoked a whole bird the other night (yummy, by the way), so whatever I was going to put together had to have chicken involved.

I went to the all knowledgable world wide web and queried, “chicken recipes”.  Up popped one called “Skillet, Chicken Cordon Bleu”.  Well, I quickly read down through the instructions and the list of ingredients needed.  Some were easy to decide if I had it in the house or not, while others were…well, What the Hell is that…!!!!  It sounded great and so that was what I was going to put together.

Here is what the list of ingredients are as per the internet:

The image isn’t really clear, so I’ll have to tell you what some of it says.  The first line is 1 lb. penne.  Well, for one thing I really have no clue as to what that is, but I think it’s like macaroni.  So, to the cupboard I went and found we had two partial bags of what looked like macaroni.  One was in the shape of bow ties, the other elbows.  I grabbed up both and dumped them into a pot of water and started it boiling.  Whatever Penne is will just have to wait for another day.  Butter, garlic, flour, salt and pepper, mustard powder, chicken, ham parmesan cheese…it’s all good.  I gathered it all up and set it near by for use when it was called for.

In a frying pan I poured in the chicken broth and then started adding the other stuff, like butter, salt and pepper etc.  As my macaroni boiled, I kept an eye on it while I mixed up the other stuff.  The recipe calls for Heavy cream.  Well, the heaviest cream in the fridge was Sour Cream, so that will have to do for now!  In went almost the entire tub we had.  The macaroni was almost done when I began chopping up the chicken and ham.  As those were chopped up I added them to the pan of melted butter and sour cream and seasonings.  It was actually smelling pretty good.  I turned off the macaroni and poured out the water then added the macaroni to the pan of other stuff.  Stirred it up really good and went back to the recipe to see what I had missed, if anything.  OH DEAR!!!  2 Cups of Gruyere!  What the hell is that?  Grabbing my iPhone I asked Serie what it was and she said “hard block of cheese”, or something like that!  Well, let’s look in the fridge…no blocks of cheese at all, but there was a partial bag of Mexican Blend shredded cheese, but certainly not 2 cups worth.  Well, whatever I had of it went into the pan and got stirred up with the rest.

Then the recipe called for putting it in the oven at 400 degrees after topping it off with parmesan cheese.  I liberally covered the top of the pan with parmesan and put the whole kit and caboodle into the oven.  Sherry came home and the first thing she said was:  “Parmesan”…yep, the house smelled real good of parmesan cheese at that moment.

Later on when we sat down to eat, I wasn’t real sure what the outcome was going to be, but it smelled good and unlike my failed attempt at “if it’s good by itself, it must be good mixed with other stuff that is good by itself…vienna kipper pie”, it actually tasted good.  Not exactly like Chicken Cordon Bleu, but it did have a hint of that flavor.  I’ll be making that again.  So, aside from not putting in the amounts the recipe called for and for not putting in exactly what the recipe called for I modified it to the Bears Butt version and I hope some day you too will try it.  When you do, keep in mind a cup of something is quite a bit and unless you like a ton of leftovers, you decide if you should really follow the recipe to a “T” or not.  Here is what I ended up with as MY recipe:  

Bears Butt

July 28, 2017