Parmesan Chicken

Our local grocery store often has BOGO deals that means Buy One, Get One and of course, I always go for it.  The store will usually have four weeks in a row of such deals and often include steak, salmon fillets, and good old chicken breasts.  They aren't doing BOGO now because of the coronavirus but I still have a few of their packages of BOGO meats in the freezer that we are using up.  It actually feels good to be going through the food in the freezer.  I'm not sure what I was saving it all for - a virus outbreak, I guess.  We haven't been to the store in over 10 days now so we're starting to get a new grocery list together which means I'm figuring out menus.  I ordered from Instacart twice and they delivered to our front porch and Bruce has been once to the grocery store during the senior hour which they have from 7:00am - 8:00 am.  There aren't that many people in the store at that time which is nice.  But things change constantly with this outbreak.   Many stores are limiting the number of people into the store now.  People are wearing masks now when going outside the home (finally!) which I thought we should have been doing all along but I understand how they couldn't advise that because people would hoard.  In our area, there are less hospital admissions of covid patients and we never did run out of hospital beds like in other parts of the country and now they say we are most likely past our peak.  We started "social distancing" very early on and now it is paying off.  I'm so glad!  Unfortunately, it has taken me this long to get use to not running to store every time I need something.  We have three grocery stores within walking distance so there is never a need to stock up, really.  Planning ahead takes practice and although we are doing it now, it did take awhile.  I didn't realize how much food we have in this house!  Of course, we do get cravings for certain things so I made my banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies the other day.  These are good for breakfast or snack.

And it's always fun to change it up by eating breakfast for dinner.  We like to do this with our favorite health pancakes.  How many of you are eating breakfast for dinner these days?

We found a package of BOGO steak in the freezer over the weekend and made perfectly cooked, medium rare steak, just the way we like it with some dried morel mushrooms from my pantry that I rehydrated and sautéed in butter.  That was one good dinner.

Digging through the freezer determines what we'll eat so I just think of interesting ways to fix it, like with these chicken breasts.  Of all my chicken recipes, half of them are for chicken breasts.  They are really versatile;  good for soups, for marinates, for salads, you name it.  This recipe is one of my favorites. You can make Parmesan Chicken with marinara sauce and pasta with melted mozzarella cheese over it but I actually like it just plain with a salad or vegetable.  My mom made Chicken Parmesan when I was growing up and I always loved it. You don't really need a recipe for it.  It's one of those things where you just dip it into a liquid mixture and a bread mixture and you can bake it or fry it.  As usual, I like the way Ina Garten makes it so I used the recipe from her cookbook, Barefoot Contessa Family Style.  I still have one more package of frozen BOGO chicken breast in the freezer after this one so what shall I make next?

Serves 6

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup all-purpose flour
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 extra-large eggs
1-1/4  cups seasoned dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving
unsalted butter
olive oil

1.  Pound chicken breasts until they are 1/4 inch thick.  You can use either a meat mallet or a rolling pin.  Lightly season with salt and pepper.

2.  Combined the flour, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper on a dinner dinner plate or pie pan.

3.  Beat eggs with 1 Tbsp. of water in a second pie pan.

4.  In a third pie pan, combine the bread crumbs and 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese.

5.  Coat the chicken breasts on both sides with the flour mixture.

6.  Dip both sides of chicken breasts into the egg mixture.

7.  Dredge both sides of chicken breasts in the bread crumb mixture, pressing lightly.

8.  Heat 1 Tbsp. of butter and 1 Tbsp. of olive oil in a large sauce pan.

9.  Cook 2 or 3 chicken breasts on medium-low heat for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until cooked through.  Add more butter and oil and cook the rest of the chicken breasts.

Serve with extra grated Parmesan cheese and a nice hardy salad.