Chicken Parmesan

I have not posted in a while. If anyone follows this blog, I do apologize. My brother is home for Spring Break. This is code for I must buy Cran-Grape Juice, and make Chicken Parmesan. Not that I have too, but there are certain things you do to maintain the title of best sister ever, even if you are the only one.

J

So, here is my recipe for chicken Parmesan, along with my pasta sauce recipe. If you have never made pasta sauce before, I know it may seem intimidating to make something that is perfectly fine coming out of a jar, but I promise it isn’t very hard.

I forgot to grab the eggs for the ingredient round up picture.

The first step to pasta sauce is to turn stewed tomatoes into runny tomato sauce. Just pop it into a blender, turn it on and voilà the promising beginnings to your own tomato sauce!

Sauté the minced garlic in olive oil for about three minutes. This will bring out the flavor and to make the whole kitchen smell Italian. Then add in pureed tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, sugar, salt, and pepper. Allow to simmer for 15 min. and then remove from heat and add fresh basil. That is all that is involved in making pasta sauce.

Now, for the Parmesan. Quite frankly, it could be called Chicken Mozzarella, since it has more mozzarella in it than it does Parmesan or, as I call them Mozz and Parm. I cook with cheese so much, I give them nicknames. Note: If you are doing three chicken breasts, the recipe is the same, except you beat two eggs instead of one.

Preheat oven to 300

Cut chicken breasts in half such that they look like fat chicken fingers.

Beat and egg in a small bowl, and but Italian bread crumbs in a larger bowl

Roll chicken breast in beaten egg, and then dredge through bread crumbs.  I like to do this assembly line style, I feel like the Henry Ford of cooking.

Fry the breasts in olive oil just long enough to brown the outside. The intent at the moment is to give the exterior layer of the chicken a little crunch, not to cook it all the way through.

Cover the bottom of 8x10 pan with just enough pasta sauce to cover the whole thing.

             Place chicken in the pan, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Pour over the rest of the pasta sauce

Top with Mozzarella cheese

Bake for 1 hour, serve over noodles.

Chicken Parmesan

Sauce

1 Tbs. Olive Oil

1 clove garlic, minced

3 cans stewed tomatoes

½ tsp. Italian seasoning

2 tsp. Sugar

¼ tsp. Salt

¼ tsp. Pepper

2 Tbs. Fresh Basil Sliced

    1.       Puree tomatoes in a blender until saucy

    2.       Sauté garlic in olive oil for 1 min.

    3.       Add remaining ingredients, except basil. Cook stirring occasionally for 15 min.

    4.       Remove from heat and add basil

Chicken Parmesan

2-3 Boneless skinless chicken breasts

 Olive Oil

1-2 eggs, beaten

1 ½ cups Italian bread crumbs

1 Jar or batch of homemade Pasta sauce

¼ cup Shredded parmesan cheese

½ cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

     1.       Preheat oven to 300

     2.       Cut chicken breasts in half long ways to create two large chicken fingers

     3.       Dip chicken into the eggs, and then dredge through Italian Breadcrumbs

     4.       Fry the chicken in olive oil, enough to brown the outside, but not enough to cook through               

     5.          Remove chicken from oil and drain on a paper towel

     6.       Line bottom of 8x10 baking pan with enough sauce to cover the bottom.

     7.       Place chicken in baking dish. Top each piece with Parmesan then spoon sauce evenly over each piece.

     8.       Pour all of the remaining sauce over the chicken, top with mozzarella

     9.       Bake 1 hour. Serve over spaghetti noodles