New meal: Chicken Parmesan

When she and my dad visited a few weeks ago, my mom told me about a chicken parmesan recipe she'd tried out to great success at home. What with spring break and general busy-ness, I didn't have a chance to try it out for myself until last night, when I made it for dinner with the roomie.

I used the recipe from Joy Bauer for Healthy Chicken Parmesan and Broccoli as my template with a few adjustments to better suit tastes and time considerations. Instead of making a pasta sauce as per the recipe, I used Muir Glen Organic Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce--it's a bit chunky, has a great herb flavor, and blended well with the flavors of the chicken. I also opted to make a bit of linguine to serve with the chicken, and I cooked the broccoli florets in the pasta water for the last 3-3 1/2 minutes that the pasta needed to cook.

I suppose this recipe is a bit more labor intensive than some people might like for a weeknight recipe, but everything was actually very simple. I found it relaxing to pound the chicken breasts and then dredge them in the flour-egg-breading mixtures, and the actual cooking time for the entirety of dinner (chicken, pasta, veg) was barely 12 minutes. Now that I've made the recipe once, I'm sure I could do it more quickly during future preparations. Regardless of the time, though, this was one tasty dinner.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to heat up some leftovers for my lunch.