Everything's Better With Bacon. Especially Bacon.

Last night Boyfriend and I decided to make a full-on, sit-down, pig-out meal. The recipe below kind of formed out two other recipes I chopped up and combined: See Chunky Monkey and Rachel Ray if you want the originals. I can't guarantee everyone will like it (Vegetarians, I'm talking to you), but if you like cheese and meat, you'll probably eat the shit out of this.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Ingredients:

-Chicken breasts (2)

-Swiss cheese

-Ricotta cheese

-Italian seasoning

-Bacon

Directions: Fillet chicken breast.

Use a meat tenderizer to smash your chicken to a flat pulp. Tip: If you don't have a meat tenderizer (like me), put your chicken in a plastic bag and use a a rolling pin to beat it up.

In a bowl, combine ricotta cheese and Italian seasoning. I didn't measure anything, but I'm guessing it was about 1 tspn of seasoning to 3 heaping tbsp of ricotta. Place a thin slice of swiss cheese, along with half of the ricotta mixture along one side of the chicken.

Roll up chicken, starting with cheese side first. Wrap uncooked bacon around the outside. Use toothpicks to keep bacon in place, if needed.

Cook for roughly 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Or until juices run clear. Or until you're starving and can't wait any longer.

This feast for the eyes and palate was followed up by a dessert I found in my new favorite magazine, Anyone Can Cook.

Lemon Cream Cheese Phyllo Cups

Ingredients:

-Frozen phyllo sheets

-Spray oil

-1 stick melted butter

-1/3 cup Sugar

-8 oz package Cream cheese

-3 tbsp Lemon curd

-Sugar for sprinkling

Directions: Separate one sheet of phyllo dough, brushing with melted butter, and sprinkle with sugar.

Repeat with three more sheets, stacking each on top of the previous sheet, until you have 4 sheets buttered, sugared, and stacked. Cut stack into even squares. (I cut mine into 4 even squares, but they came out too big for the cups. Sue me.) Stuff each square into the cup of a muffin tin that's been sprayed with oil.

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until crisp.

While the cups are in the oven, combine cream cheese, sugar, and lemon curd.

Once cups have cooled, fill with cream cheese mixture. I didnt want to crush my precious phyllo cups and make a mess with the filling and then cry all over the place, so I created a piping bag out of a Ziplock baggie to avoid any spillage.

Decorate with berries or mint leaves or lemon zest or whatever's laying around the house.

Try these recipes the next time someone fancy comes over. They're sure to be dazzled.

Boner'ppetite.