Sunday, November 8, 2009

Chicken Parmesan



Most Sunday nights Brian and I head over to his parent’s house for a nice family dinner. Since we’ve been married I now feel that I need to contribute to these dinners, bring a salad, or dessert or something. His mom hasn’t really taken me up on this offer, but last week we invited them over to our house for Sunday night dinner. They hadn’t seen our apartment since we got all moved in, and I’m obsessed with my kitchen table and love to be able to set it for a lot of people. Brian even decided to get out the leaf for the table to make it bigger to accommodate everyone. Brittany and Paul (sister and boyfriend) were coming too.

I wanted to make something good, obviously, but not a bunch of new recipes. I didn’t want to stress over if it would turn out or not. So I decided on my red pasta sauce, but I thought that I should add a little something to it. As I was cruising around the Food Network recipes I decided that I would add a little chicken parmesan to my marinara. I had never made chicken parm before, but I watched a couple videos and read through some recipes and decided it wouldn’t be too bad.

I absolutely love my red sauce recipe. Of course it’s my mom’s recipe. It’s been around for quite some time, and is pretty much fool proof. This time I decided to puree it a little bit more than usual with my emersion blender, and I paired it with thin spaghetti instead of our usual penne. For the chicken I pounded the chicken breasts with a rolling pin to about 1/4 of an inch thick. I dipped it in flour, then egg, and then into a mix of bread crumbs, fresh chopped parsley and parmesan cheese. I had a pan with oil heated and could cook about two at a time. I still have a hard time knowing how long it is going to take to cook chicken all the way through. And I’m super paranoid about under cooking my chicken. So when it says about four to fie minutes each side, I still cut one open to see if they are done. Mine took a bit longer because my chicken breasts were really big. I served it all up with some salad and French bread toasted with butter, garlic powder and parsley.

All in all the meal turned out quite tasty. And if you’re not up for the chicken, just try out the sauce, so easy and so tasty.

Sauté:
8 cloves of garlic
2 onions
3 Tbs of Olive Oil

Add:
1/8 Cup Parsley
1/8 Cup Basil
2 Tbs honey (if you want it sweeter)
2 can original stewed tomatoes
2 can Italian stewed tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes with peppers & onions

Makes enough to go with a one pound box of pasta.

Chicken:
Pound chicken breasts with rolling pin until 1/4 inch thick
Dip in flour, then beaten egg, then dip in mixture of break crumbs, parsley and parmesan cheese
Cook in pan with heated oil until browned and cooked through

2 comments: