Chicken Mozzarella

Yesterday I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner and I popped over to the Frugal by Choice blog to revisit a recipe I had seen there: Weeknight chicken parmesan.

I have never made Chicken Parmesan, if fact I don't recall making any breaded chicken dish.  This isn't an issue for this recipe, but I decided to simply use the presented recipe as inspiration for my own creation.  Of course, for all I know I am simply "creating" the proper recipe to begin with.

First thing I had to do was get the proper ingredients.  The Frugal by Choice recipe used pre-cooked chicken, which I didn't have.  A quick trip to the local supermarket got me all the ingredients I needed: four chicken breasts, a pound of mozzarella, and two jars of marinara sauce.  I already had the eggs and Italian bread crumbs for the breading and thought I had the noodles I wanted to use.  Since I was actually out of the pasta I wanted I just substituted.  Since I wasn't following the recipe anyway, it didn't matter.

I think the chicken is normally pounded out, but screw that noise.  I just cut the chicken diagonally in roughly inch-wide strips.  Then I dipped and breaded them, laying the finishes slices in a greased glass pan.  I had to grab a second pan because the chicken filled the first one a bit more than expected.  When done I popped the pans in the oven at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes....I don't quite remember which.

When the chicken was done I just dumped the marina sauce in, one jar per pan.  The mozzarella was sliced thin and placed on top of the chicken.  In retrospect I wish I would have grated it first.  The whole lot went back into the oven for another 15 minutes while I got the water boiling for the noodles.  When the water was ready I flipped the oven over to broil and browned the cheese while the noodles cooked.

It all came out just fine.

I'm thinking that I should have called this dish Chicken Mozzarella.