Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Tasty Tuesday: Baked Parmesan Chicken


Welcome to Tasty Tuesday!!

 

Thanks to Pinterest we can find some fantastic recipes to try from every end of the spectrum… you can also waste a perfectly good afternoon designing your pretend closet in your dream home, that you promise to work out in because you happened to pin 92 different work outs to get J-lo’s butt….but that is another story for a different day!! J

 

         On a completely honest note we at the Purcell household are trying to eat healthier. We don’t eat a bunch of junk really, it’s just that I love pasta, and savory, and those usually don’t come in a healthy option. If they do they don’t taste very well. So here is an attempt at finding a healthier option for a savory pasta dish…Chicken Parmesan!!

 

        This recipe comes from www.skinnytaste.com. If this turns out as fantastic as her pictures make it look like it will be, then I will be stalking her page for a while finding other new recipes. As I say this to my husband he rolls his eyes, probably thinking “oh no that may cut into her Pinterest/sewing/reality TV show time!” I know, the thought crossed my mind to, but these are just sacrifices I am willing to make for the greater good of our waistlines!

Baked Chicken Parmesan:

Here’s what you need:

·       4 (8oz) chicken

·       ¾ cup seasoned bread crumbs (Preferably whole wheat)

·       ¼ cup grated Parmesan Cheese

·       2 tbsps. melted butter or olive oil

·       ¾ cup reduced fat mozzarella cheese

·       1 cup marinara or Filetto di Pomodoro

·       Cooking spray

 

Preheat your oven to 450˚. Spray a large baking sheet lightly with cooking spray.

Next combine the bread crumbs and parmesan cheese in a bowl. I get the seasoned breadcrumbs but I still like to add more seasoning to them. I throw in some Italian spice, a little garlic powder, some onion powder, oregano, and a smidgeon of basil.


        Melt the butter (if you choose to use that instead of olive oil) in a separate bowl, and then lightly brush onto the chicken. Now I have to pause here, when looking at the pictures and reading the original recipe she has these cute little pieces of chicken. I looked at mine and they look like they would rob her chicken at gunpoint in a dark alley!! They were HUGE!!!



So after cutting those in thirds I proceeded to butter those babies! Once the chicken has been buttered, dip in the bread crumb mixture. Place chicken on the baking sheet and repeat process until you run out of chicken… or until you run out of things to coat in breadcrumbs, because if you are anything like me you use way too much but hate to waste it!
 
 
 

These mushrooms should taste ridiculous coated in the parmesan breadcrumb mixture! Please don’t worry, I remember there is such thing as cross contamination, so when I noticed there were going to be too much bread crumbs I removed some and put in a separate bowl just for this! I will experiment with them and report my findings!

Lightly spray the top of the chicken with a little more oil, and then toss those bad boys (or girls miss politically correct) in the oven for 20 minutes. Once the 20 minutes are up, turn over and bake for another 5 minutes. Then remove from oven and spoon 1 tbsp. of sauce over each piece of chicken and top with 1 ½ tbsp. of shredded mozzarella. Now here is where I slightly changed the recipe. You don’t have to but I again like more seasoning. So I took my Marinara sauce and threw it in a pot on the stove so I could doctor it up a bit (not that I needed to because I went with this amazing stuff from Wolfgang Puck himself).

 


 That and I wanted to be able to guarantee that the marinara wasn’t going to come out of the oven luke warm. I like my food to practically burn my face off! J No seriously I actually have a salsa recipe named “Burn your face off”, but that will be on another Tasty Tuesday! I also didn’t have any mozzarella cheese. I know huge failure on my part! So I just substituted for a bit of my 3 cheese blend and some provolone. Don’t judge me it is delicious, ok?

        Once the marinara and the cheese are spooned onto the chicken, bake for another 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted. If you want to keep this extra healthy eat this without the traditional spaghetti pasta that accompanies this dish usually. If you are a pasta fiend like myself, substitute normal pasta for the whole wheat version, and only use a spoon full or two of the remaining marinara sauce (because you know I made too much and refuse to waste it) on the pasta, and then dig in and enjoy.

Here is what my final dish looks like.



 

 

 Yeah, not as pretty and fancy as the lady from skinnytaste.com, so if you want to know what it is supposed to look like check out her site… but do me a favor and at least fib to me and say mine probably tastes way better!

 

 
Oh and about those mushrooms… I threw them in the oven for about 7 minutes and then took them out and the husband and I devoured them. Sorry for not having any self-control to stop eating the delicious goodness and take a picture for you all. Bad Tasha, I will try and do better next time!

 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment