It dawned on me last night how far we have come with my nine year old when it comes to eating. He sat at the table and enjoyed this feta-stuffed chicken dinner. I figured he must have really liked it because he ate almost everything on his plate, including the salad. When I asked him what he thought of it he said in a normal tone, “It was okay.” and I was happy with that answer, because 1.) he respectful ate his dinner without complaining, 2.) even though it wasn’t his favorite food, and 3.) it wasn’t any big deal to him.

Back up five years….

It’s taken us a long time to get here. The other day I was going through some of my old, OLD, posts from before we updated our blog. As Sarah and I were preparing for our blogging planning weekend I wanted to look back and see how far we had come since 2008 when we started. One thing I had written back in 2010 was about my son’s eating habits and how I was discouraged because he only wanted to eat food that was bad for you. Of course, this is almost every mom’s struggle…

How do I get my kids to eat healthy?

I think I might know part of the answer now… consistency. Consistently putting healthy foods in front of them even when they gripe and complain. This takes patience, of course, and that (I think) is the hardest part. Patience. My five year old is not here yet, so I am still trying to practice patience with him at the dinner table. Some days that is easier than others. Even my five year old took several bites of this feta-stuffed chicken though, and he even announced, “This is good”! So, wahoo! Winner winner chicken dinner! Keep pressing through mommas. Eventually they will get there!

Here is what you need for this recipe:

1 Tbsp. Spaghetti sauce
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (1-1.5 pounds)
1/4 c. crumbled feta cheese (1 ounce)
2 Tbsp. softened fat-free cream cheese (1 ounce)
2 tsp. snipped fresh basil or 1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/8 tsp. ground pepper
2 tsp. olive oil
Salad greens
Bottled reduced-fat vinaigrette (optional… I didn’t use dressing but my son and husband did)

Here is what you do:

1. Cut a slit down the middle of each piece of chicken without cutting all the way through to the other side. Don’t be afraid to cut your chicken thin. The thinner the chicken the faster it will cook.
2. Mix up feta cheese, cream cheese, basil and spaghetti sauce.

3. Spread about 1 Tbsp. of the mixture in the pocket of each chicken breast half.

4. Sprinkle chicken with pepper. I scraped the side of the bowl with the feta cheese mixture and put a little glaze over the top of the chicken. (this is not a necessary step, just something I wanted to try) Heat oil in a skillet and cook chicken for 12-15 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle. (cooking will take longer the bigger your pieces of chicken are.) I had thick cuts of chicken and I got impatient after I let the chicken cook 15 minutes and it was still not cooked on the inside so I ended up heating up the oven to 350°F and cooked them for an extra 7 minutes.

5. Serve chicken over, or next to, salad greens. Drizzle vinaigrette dressing over the salad if you want.

This make 4 servings but I cut the kids chicken into smaller pieces so that it made five servings.

One serving is worth 4 WW Points+. 2 WW FreeStyle Smart Points