Quick and Easy Chicken Parmesan with Another Substitute for Breadcrumbs

Heaven . . . 

I love making chicken parmesan, but it's not something I make all the time. But I think it's something I'd like to start making more time to make because it's really not as complicated as it seems. 

And it's so worth taking the time to make. There is a little teeny bit of prep involved, just breading the chicken, but that's about it. The rest of it is so fast and easy. 

So I went to prepare this last night and realized I had no breadcrumbs. Are we surprised? No. I've had disasters like this happen before and ended up making homemade breadcrumbs once. 

But this time I was not in the mood to make homemade breadcrumbs. We were eating late and I needed to figure something else out and fast. No flour . . . are you serious? Yes. Dead serious. then the light bulb goes off . . . Bisquick!! I don't know if you've ever tried using Bisquick to brown chicken in oil, but this was my first time and I wasn't sure how it'd turn out. But I figured it couldn't be as bad as not trying at all. 

Lucky for me it turned out amazing. The chicken only took three minutes on each side to brown, then stuck it in the oven with some sauce and mozzarella cheese for eight minutes. Forgot to buy angel hair pasta, which only takes three minutes. Apparently they had the Fettuccine in the spot that the angel hair was and I grabbed that instead. Yes, let's blame Walmart instead of taking responsibility. I know. So here's how this went down . . . 

Ingredients:

• Boneless skinless breasts (I had a pack of 7)
• 1 egg
• maybe 1/2 cup of milk
• 2 cups breadcrumbs, or flour, or Bisquick! 
• A little salt and pepper 
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 2-28 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes (my latest favorite is Red Pack with garlic and I think basil)
• About 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• oil (whatever you use to brown or fry - I used veg. oil, but  sometimes use olive oil)
• Angel Hair pasta (or whatever you prefer - angel hair takes 3 minutes)

Steps to Easy Chicken Parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and preheat a large frying pan with a little oil on low heat to brown the chicken. When you're ready for the chicken turn up heat to medium. 
2. Prep the chicken; crack open an egg and whip it up in a bowl (I use a fork to whip up eggs - my mom dated a cook when I was a kid and that's how he did it), then add the milk to the egg, and mix again. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Then take a plate and put the flour, breadcrumbs, or Bisquick on the plate. Add your desired seasonings. I just felt like keeping it simple and sprinkled some salt and pepper. 
3. Dip the chicken into the flour mixture, then dip into egg mixture, then back into flour mixture. Coat good, then set aside on another plate and repeat will all pieces of chicken. Once all chicken is coated proceed to step four.
4. Brown chicken for about three minutes on each side (thin cut chicken breast). Once brown drain on a plate with paper towels and continue with remainder of chicken. 
5. At this time you can start warming the sauce. Add Parmesan cheese to sauce, then cover and simmer on low heat while you finish remainder of steps. During this time you'll also want to fill a pot of water for your spaghetti. 
6. Chicken is done browning, so take a baking sheet (greased or covered with foil) and place the chicken on the baking sheet. Coat each piece of chicken with sauce (your crushed tomatoes) and then sprinkle (or smother) with mozzarella cheese. Place in oven for eight minutes.
7. Cook and drain pasta, and that's it.
8. Num, num, num . . . enjoy.

Basically all you're doing is browning the chicken, simmering sauce, sticking the chicken in the oven with sauce and mozzarella yumminess and cooking the pasta. It sounds complicated if you've never tried, but once you get going it's actually pretty fast. Thin cut chicken and angel hair pasta make it even faster. Enjoy!! I did!! 

TGIF: Crabby Patty Friday . . . Our New Thing

Would you like some fries with that ketchup . . . no. :)

So a few years ago I turned Friday's into hot dog Friday (beef - not pork!) with a side of fries, and pickles. During the summer, mac salad baby. 

Usually, every Friday, but not every Friday if you know what I mean. Then this past year, it became fun to have a McDonald's Friday, or a Burger King Friday, or a pizza Friday. 

This past Friday was our second crabby patty Friday and this one's a keeper, so we bid farewell to hot dog Friday. There's a funny story to this, sort of. 

Well, it's funny to me anyway. My boys like to remind me that when I say it's funny, it's usually not, and then they proceed to laugh at me (with me). Okay, so when my older boys were little I always thought the crabby patty's from Sponge Bob Squarepants were real crab . . . so if we had a fish fillet night on a bun, I'd kid around and call them crabby patty's. 

I didn't realize until the past couple of years that the crabby patty is in fact a . . . burger. And I mean, it makes sense. Mr. Crab's is a crab, so why would he sell crab meat. And they're called crabby patty's, because they're Mr. Crab's patty's. Yes. I get it now . . . So my girls are really into Spongebob like my boys when they were little and I thought it would be fun to have a crabby patty night with all the toppings just like the real thing. 

With the only exception of course . . . the crabby patty sauce. When I went shopping on Friday morning I tried looking for Sponge Bob plates at my one stop shop, and where I spend the most of my money to get treated the worst . . . you guessed it, Wolly's World AKA Walmart! I shouldn't say that, because there are great people that work there too. 

They make up for the people that act like you're bothering them if you ask them a question. So they had no Sponge Bob plates, and I'm like, sad times . . . no Sponge Bob plates in Walmart? Oh well, so we settled for yellow, which is close enough. The first time I made them they seemed stacked higher. I think it's because I sliced the tomato thinner this time. 

Next time I'll stack 'em better so I can get a better picture, then swap the pic out here. And, yup, sure enough I went to make them Friday night and realized I forgot an ingredient . . . the cheese. I realized this as I was cooking. How do you do that? The next night I forgot the sour cream for our taco night. Yes, story of my life here. 

And every Friday when I leave Walmart, I say to the cashier, I feel like I'm forgetting something and it eludes me, list and all. Then I realize what I need . . . when I need it. So I improvised with shredded mozzarella for our chicken parm night . . . oy vey . . . but they were still good!! 

It's easy to make a crabby patty. All you need is...

Crabby Patty Ingredients:

• Ground beef (I get 90% lean - I think that's it?)
• 1 red onion sliced
• 2-3 tomatoes sliced (depending on how many people you're serving)
• sliced cheese
• seeded hamburger buns
• lettuce
• ketchup, mustard, and/or mayo (I like to mix all three and make a special sauce, shh)

Once you've made your patty's finish with a side of fries (preferably home fries!), and pickles, and you've got a fun-filled night of crabby patty fun!! 

Blog Back and Starting Over Sort of . . .

So here we are, long time no hear, eh. It's been approximately three and a half years since my last post and a lot has happened. Some things happened in my personal life right around my last post and it just took the heart I had for my blogging away from me. 

All in the same year, 2014, a two year custody battle began, then one of my big brothers passed away of pneumonia and I watched him take his last breath off life support, I started college, and I moved, along with more if we can believe. 

My heart was no longer in my blog and my focus shifted. So here I am ready to restart my blog. I have ideas and I have already changed my domain name. I like the Carmen's Xscape Spot. I went with that because writing and journaling is my mental "escape" and this is a Blogger blog, you know, the addresses are normally "Blogspot" so I'm corny, what can I tell you? Carmen's Xscape Spot it is. I'm back . . . Stay tuned . . . 

♥ Carmen ♥

Edited to add:  Changed the name again and this one's a keeper - www.noturaveragemom.com!! This is it. Never changing it again, anytime soon anyway. I decided to restart my blog yesterday and to come up with a new domain name. I couldn't come up with anything crafty right off the bat, so I knew I should have given myself more time to think of something that was the perfect fit for me . . . this is it maybe.😂