Old Favorite With a Twist

Ah chicken parmesana, how I love thee. About 40 minutes from start to finish, it's wholly satisfying.

I get recipes from Pillsbury. Some of them, as I've posted before, are interesting enough to try. The Nutty Chicken Breasts that involved the use of the crock pot were okay. They came up with this half-hour, start to finish Chicken Parmesana recipe. The unique, for me, ingredient was Panko. I know of it, but I'd never used it in cooking.

Now, I have friends who swear by Panko. This is Japanese breadcrumbs, for those not in the know. Panko is made from crustless bread, coarsely ground into bigger, airier flakes. It's designed to have a crispier crust on fried foods. Once the province of Oriental markets, I bought Progresso brand Italian flavored Panko so it's probably in either the Asian section or the place where bread crumbs or croutons are in your favorite market.

Essentially, you mixed Italian flavor Panko with parmesan, dredged the breasts in the mixture and browned them on both sides. (They recommended sticking the Panko and cheese in a plastic bag, adding the breasts and shaking them. Yet one more way to get rid of those horrible plastic bags I bought.) Then you added an 18 ounce jar of spaghetti sauce to the pan, spreading around the chicken, sprinkled the left over Panko over the chicken, topped it with mozzarella, covered the pan and cooked for 10 more minutes. While the chicken cooked, you make spaghetti. I had to have a vegetable so I microwaved the rest of a bag of peas.

To serve, put a serving of spaghetti on a plate, top with a chicken breast and spoon some of the spaghetti sauce over and around the chicken breast. I used two cans of tomato sauce that I'd seasoned with garlic and Italian seasonings.

The verdict? Well, I'll have to try the Panko in other dishes. When I make chicken parmesana with bread crumb coating, I think it's crispier. The Panko crust seemed soggy. I also don't feel the chicken really needs a coating. The best chicken parmesana I ever had was chicken breast sauted in olive oil, onion, garlic and Italian seasonings. Then the pan was deglazed with a half cup of white wine.

When all the bits were up off the bottom of the pan, a half cup of chicken broth was added to the pan, the chicken breasts returned and seasoned tomato sauce was poured over the breasts. It had chunks of tomato in the sauce which, usually, I don't like. The whole mixture was cooked, covered, for 15 minutes. Then mozzarella and parmesan cheese was placed on the breasts and the whole thing was covered and cooked for about 5 minutes or until the cheese melted. The chicken breast was served with pasta and a tossed salad. The tomato sauce was spooned over the pasta and the tomato chunks had been reduced to mush, almost sauce themselves. Oh heavenly day. But doing it that way took about twice as long as just rolling the breast in a breading and frying it.

This has made decent leftovers although the coating is really mushy when microwaved. I think I'll try Panko next on something that is simply baked and not covered, like fish. I'm all for expanding my culinary horizons and this might be a good fit.

Beverage:  African Rooibos tea

Deb

Finding a Spot

I decided stew was in order. I haven't made it in month, maybe in over a year. It's the kind of thing that makes a lot and "weathers" well, meaning it will be as good or even better, as leftovers in the upcoming days.

Thursday night, I cut up carrots and potatoes and diced a steak. I don't really like the meat stores can pass off as "stew meat". It can be kind of fatty and rather than imparting tenderizing to the meat, the fat makes it chewy. I prefer to purchase a flank or round steak and cut it into stew meat sized pieces. Once that was done, I dumped it into a plastic bag where the herbs and spices had been dumped. Shake the whole thing and stick the veggies and meat into the fridge.

In the morning, dump the veggies and the meat into the crock pot with two cans of tomato sauce. Turn the pot to low and have a nice day at work.

When I got home, the kitchen smelled wonderful. I added around 3/4 cup of frozen corn and let the whole thing cook one more hour. At 5:30, this was supper.

Scoop it out onto a plate and the aroma of hearty beef stew filled the air. 

Oh man. This was wonderful. I have 3 more meals from this. I really need to find a spot to keep the crock pot upstairs. I'd, no doubt, eat better and healthier if it was handy.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

Of Purple Shampoo and Punkin Pie

Remember the haircut at the end of October? The stylist told me I needed to get purple shampoo, that it would cut the yellow that builds up on gray hair. Well, part of the errands to be run on the first weekend in December was to find the brilliant purple shampoo she showed me. Do I actually notice the yellowing of my hair? No, not really, but she recommended it and she seemed to know what she was talking about. The purple shampoo she used when she cut my hair really made the gray shine. It looked very pretty.

Pam took me out for my birthday on Monday, November 29th. As a treat, we drove out of our way to go to Baker's Square specifically to have pie. The Baker's Square where we always went closed over a year ago so getting pie hasn't been part of our going out. Steak 'n Shake and IHOP are great places for us to go, but sometimes, you gotta have pie.

After a delightful meal, I was going to order pumpkin pie for dessert. I didn't have any pumpkin in the house so I couldn't make myself one over Thanksgiving. Pam said she made a pumpkin pie for her family gathering but she and her husband aren't that fond of it so it would just sit. I was welcome to have most of her leftover pie. Oh absolutely! I'll take leftover pumpkin pie. So, I got chocolate cream for dessert.

Pam also mentioned she had purple shampoo at home. Pam has the most gorgeous gray hair I think I have seen. She's got a wonderful stylist, too, who recommended some purple shampoo to her too. Well, it only came in the super, jumbo, extra-large, economy size. What you need to know is that you shouldn't wash your hair daily with the purple stuff. You know the jokes about blue-haired old ladies? Well, Pam's stylist said, "Where do you think they got the ammo for those jokes?"

Because you should only wash your hair every two weeks with the purple stuff, it lasts and long, long, long time. So after dinner, we went to Pam's and I got 3 slices of pumpkin pie and a half her bottle of purple shampoo. As you can see, it's purple, very purple, iridescent purple. I'm not a fan of the color purple, it's not a favorite, but I would wear this gleaming color of purple, it's that distinctive.

I used the shampoo for the first time last Saturday. Now, I had gone over a month between shampoos. Honestly, I didn't notice any yellowing of my gray but after one shampoo, oh yeah. There was a big difference. Part of me is tempted to wash my hair every day with the purple stuff just to see what color I get. That's me, of course, oddball that I am.

I took the pie to work from Tuesday through Thursday last week. It was so nice to eat leftovers with punkin pie.

So, when someone asks me what I got for my birthday, I say, "Pam gave me 3 pieces of pumpkin pie and purple shampoo," and I'm very grateful for that.

Beverage: English Breakfast tea

Deb