GCC: Chicken Cordon Bleu with Mushrooms

This week one of our Gutsy Cooks Club choices was Chicken Cordon Bleu. Evidently The 4th is Chicken Cordon Bleu Day (?) who knew. So I decided to go with it. To be honest when you read this we will be soaking up the sun & margaritas in Mexico and this dish will be a memory. But with only a few days before vacation a recipe that was simple and would leave no leftovers was in order.

I decided to do only a small 'gutsy' move on this one by adding sauteed mushrooms. I love the combo of swiss cheese and mushrooms together.

 This version was an Emeril via Martha recipe.

I started with pulling together the ingredients.

The first step was to slice the chicken breasts and then pound them between plastic wrap,

while I sauteed the mushrooms with some chopped garlic.

I then layered the swiss cheese, ham & mushrooms between the chicken slices like a sandwich

and secured the chicken with toothpicks.

Next I set up the breading station. I mixed the flour with some Johnny's seasoning and spicy Mrs. Dash (we don't keep Emeril's Essence in the pantry.)

I also used panko instead of regular bread crumbs and started dipping the chicken in the flour, then the egg/milk mixture then finally in the panko.

The chicken breasts then get browned on the stovetop before going into the oven to cook through.

They turned out pretty good, I went light on the saute to avoid my dreaded "fried kitchen" odor and they just lacked a little something?  We served the chicken with some steamed asparagus and coucous.

The addition of the mushrooms was just as good as I predicted it would be.

Recipe Link