Oven Baked Chicken Parmesan

I had some Grandma V's Fast Sauce leftover, so I decided to use it for some chicken parmesan.

Ingredients:
2-4 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (Mine were big so I butterflied two of them to get four).
~1 cup of tomato sauce, preferably Grandma V's Fast Sauce or Grandma D's!
~ 1 cup of shredded mozzerella cheese
A few tablespoons of grated cheese, I always use Percorino Romano
Italian seasoned breadcrumbs (about 1 cup)
1 egg (scrambled for dipping)

How much cheese and sauce you use is really going to be a personal preference.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Prep your chicken breasts (trimming anything you'd like, butterfly them if you think they are too thick or pound them). Dip each breast into your egg wash, then into the breadcrumbs. Place in a baking dish. (I put a little bit of olive oil on the bottom to make sure they didn't stick. Or you could put a little sauce).

Bake uncovered for about 15 minutes*, then add your sauce, grated cheese and mozzarella and place back into the oven until cheese is melted and your chicken is done, about 5 minutes (should be 165 degrees F internal temperature, according to foodsafety.gov).

*Your total cooking time will be about 20 minutes, so adjust when you put your sauce and cheese on depending on the heat of your sauce.  I heated my leftover sauce before I put it on the chicken so that I really only had to melt the cheese. If you put your sauce on cold, then it will need more time in the oven to heat up.

I put out some extra sauce on the table as well for anybody that wanted more sauce. Serve this with a green salad.

Broccoli and Macaroni

Here's another oldie but goodie. It's super simple and super tasty, and of course involves macaroni!

Ingredients:

1 lb of pasta (I use penne)
~1/3 cup of oil
~4-5 garlic cloves, chopped*
About 1 1/2 lbs of broccoli
Some pasta cooking water
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated cheese

I put a bunch of approximates (~) in my ingredients, mainly because I never get real measurements passed down. The oil is 1/4-1/2 inch of oil in an 8" pan. So I did 1/4 inch and then measured it and came to 1/3 cup.

Directions:
So here is the super simple instructions. You'll want to cut up your broccoli and cook it to your liking. You can do it separately in its own pot, or you can time it right and put it in the same pot with the pasta to be cooked once the pasta is finished.

While your pasta and broccoli are cooking, cook your chopped garlic in the olive oil. Make sure you watch it, garlic can burn quickly if your pan is too hot. I put my pan on medium and let the oil heat up a little bit before I put in the garlic. Cook it for a few minutes (until fragrant, like the cook books always say).

Before draining your pasta, reserve about 1/4-1/2 cup of the water. Drain your pasta, toss with the broccoli, oil and garlic. Add some pasta water if it needs to be a moistened a bit.  It will probably need at least a 1/4 cup.

Season with salt and pepper. Serve and top with grated cheese.

*If you don't feel like chopping your garlic, you could do it the way Grandma D always did it. She put whole garlic cloves in, let them brown in the oil and then removed them. The oil gets the garlic flavor, but you don't actually put the garlic in the pasta. My mom does it the way I described above, so that's the way I do it.

So there you have it, a quick, simple dish.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Gingersnaps

These cookies are awesome. I came across them last fall on the blog, twopeasandtheirpod.com, when I was looking to use up some leftover pumpkin.

These are soft cakey cookies, so if you don't like hard gingersnaps, don't worry, these are better! Of course the pumpkin is perfect for fall.

You can find the recipe at twopeasandtheirpod.

Pasta with Watery Ricotta

My mom used to make me this very simple dish a lot when I was a kid. I think she made it for me when I didn't want what the rest of the family was having. (Thanks, Mom!). I decided to whip it up tonight for a walk down memory lane.

All you need is pasta, ricotta, grated cheese and a little water.  You could really just estimate everything but I'll tell you what my measurements were for this single serving I just made.

Ingredients: (single serving)
1 c. dired pasta
1 heaping tablespoon of ricotta
1 tsp or so of pasta water
1 tsp of grated cheese, I like pecorino-romano

Cook your pasta according to the package's directions. Save a couple of tablespoons of the water before you drain the pasta so you can use it to make your ricotta watery.

I put my heaping tablespoon in my pasta bowl, put about a tsp of water in, stirred it around and then added my pasta. Add your grated cheese, stir it all up and you have pasta with watery ricotta. It's that simple!

I think this would have been good with some peas, too. If I had some I would have added them in there. I would just cook the peas with the pasta (adding them to the pasta pot when the appropriate amount of time was left for your pasta).

Corn Flakes Coated Chicken

I had cornflakes left over from my Crab and Prosciutto Stuffed Peppers and decided I could use them up by coating chicken with them. I remember my mom doing this before and I've been bored of plain old roasted chicken. It turned out good, with a nice crunch.

I served the chicken with some green beans and roasted potatoes and onions.

I had two rather huge chicken breasts and I probably had enough stuff left to do a third chicken breasts, so we'll say this is enough for 2-3 large chicken breasts.

Ingredients (enough for 2-3 large skinless boneless chicken breasts)

Chicken breasts (or any chicken pieces you want to use)
2 cups of Corn Flakes cereal, crushed. (Measure it when it's whole, then crush)
1 egg
1/3 c milk
1/3 c flour
1/4 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper

Place crushed cornflakes in a shallow bowl or on waxed papper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together egg and milk. Add flour, salt and pepper, stir to combine.

Take your chicken pieces on at a time and dip in the milk/flour mixture, then in the Corn Flakes.

Place each coated piece in a single layer in a shallow baking pan coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. Do not cover or turn chicken while baking.
Mine actually hit the "safe" temperature of 165 a little before an hour, so check on it.

I cut up some potatoes and onions, tossed them with some olive oil, salt and pepper and placed in baking pan in the oven while the chicken cooked. I also served green beans to round out the meal with a vegetable.

Caprese Salad

A caprese salad - tomatoes and fresh mozzarella - is a perfect summertime food. Serve as a side dish or an appetizer. I can't think of anyone that wouldn't like this. If they don't like tomatoes (craziness) then they can enjoy the fresh mozzarella.

Ingredients:
Beefsteak tomatoes
Fresh mozzarella
Basil (fresh or dried)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Slice your tomatoes and an even amount of fresh mozzarella. Arrange on a plate, overlapping a slice of tomato and a slice of cheese. Top with fresh basil leaves or sprinkle with dried basil. Drizzle olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Serve as an appetizer or as a side dish with Crab and Prosciutto Stuffed Peppers.

Crab and Prosciutto Stuffed Peppers

Here is another recipe from Giada. Garret and I just moved into our new house and we wanted to have my parents over to see it. It worked out that it was father's day this weekend, too, so we had my parents over for a light lunch before going out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.

These are vey easy to make, taste great, and they can be assembled before your guests come over.  They are also light, so they won't fill you up too much on a hot summer day.  I served them with a Caprese salad.

These serve four, or if you are serving more sides, even 8.  Basically 1-2 pepper halves per person.

1 lb lump crab meat
1 c. crushed cornflakes cereal
6 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, chopped into 1/2 pieces
2 tbsp mayonaise
4 scallions, thinly sliced (1/2 c.)
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp. salt
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, optional
4 small red, yellow or orange bell peppers (any combination of colors you choose), stemmed, halved lengthwise, seeds and ribs removed
olive oil for drizzling
1 1/2 cups of lower sodium chicken or vegetable broth

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Prepare your peppers as stated above. Remove the stems, cut them in half lengthwise, remove the seeds and the ribs.

In a medium bowl, combine the crab, cornflakes, half the prosciutto, the mayonaise, scallions, egg, salt, and the cayenne pepper if you use it.

You'll need a 13x9 baking dish.  Spoon your filling in the bell pepper halves, dividing it evenly.  Push it down in the crevices and make sure you get the filling in there, or your'll have some left over, depending on how big your peppers are.

Place your stuffed peppers into your baking dish.  Top evenly with the remaining prosciutto, then drizzle with olive oil.  Pour the broth into the dish around the peppers.

Cook in the oven until the peppers are tender, about 40 minutes.

Serve with a caprese salad or green salad, or both!