Chicken Cordon Bleu

I was up for a challenge again in the kitchen, and this was perfect. Easy, but tricky enough to be proud of! It was delicious! I had some left over sandwich ham from this weekend, so I decided to throw it in some chicken and make something impressive. We loved it! The rice was a little bland, so I recommend adding some more spices to the sauce, but overall, it was so good. The chicken was perfect! My picture didn't look quite as good as the picture above, but it still tasted fantastic.

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups of rice
1 cup mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped onions
1 tsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
2 cups half and half (I used 2% milk)
1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, halved
8 thin slices Black Forest Ham
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cracked pepper
1/3 cup flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp water
1- 1 1/2 cups Panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Prepare rice as normal and place in a greased 9x13 pan, set aside.
3. In a pan, saute mushrooms, garlic, and onions in butter. When soft, stir in half and half, and flour. Simmer until thickened. Stir into the rice and keep warm.
4. Take the halves of the chicken breasts, and cut down the middle, but not all the way through, and lay open. Roll Mozzarella cheese in the ham and place the ham/cheese combo in the chicken. Pin the sides of the chicken together with a toothpick.
5. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.
6. In one bowl, put the flour. In a second bowl, whisk egg and water together, and in a third bowl, put the Panko bread crumbs in.
7. Roll each chicken in the flour, then the egg, then the bread crumbs and place in skillet with vegetable oil.
8. Cook chicken on each side for about 4 minutes, until the crumbs are golden brown. Remove the toothpick and place each chicken over the rice.
9. Cook, covered, for 40-45 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink.

Enjoy!

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