Month-of-One-Pan Meals: Parmesan Chicken

Welcome to my annual Month-of Recipes on this blog. Go rummaging in the attic here and you’ll find past recipe months for appetizers, chicken, soup, mini-desserts, and more. The way it works is, for each day in February I post a recipe that fits the category. This month is one-pan meals, excluding pizza, most casseroles, and slow cooker recipes.

Ready for more chicken? This is my penultimate chicken recipe for this month’s series on one-pan meals. I told you, we eat A LOT of chicken!

I like the simplicity of this meal. I can throw it together in minutes and get it on the table in 30 minutes or so. Fast meal and tasty. And all in one pan!

Parmesan Chicken (serves 4)

4 chicken thighs

4 long carrots cut in half longways and through the middle

8 small potatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

Coarse sea salt and pepper to taste

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Massage the vegetables with olive oil, salt and pepper them, and set aside.

Mix together more salt and pepper with the garlic powder, minced garlic, and parmesan cheese. Coat the top of each thigh with the mixture, covering sides and bottoms. Press into the chicken.

Place chicken in baking dish. Arrange the vegetable around the chicken.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until meat thermometer registers 165 degrees in the thickest part.

Serve immediately, dribbling pan juices over the chicken.

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up

“This is a different way to have chicken. I like it.”

Oh, good. You’ll be seeing it again, then!

Month-of-One-Pan Meals: Baked Chicken Thighs

Welcome to my annual Month-of Recipes on this blog. Go rummaging in the attic here and you’ll find past recipe months for appetizers, chicken, soup, mini-desserts, and more. The way it works is, for each day in February I post a recipe that fits the category. This month is one-pan meals, excluding pizza, most casseroles, and slow cooker recipes.

Sometimes you just want simple, right? Well, you got it with this one-pan meal. While you certainly are welcome to add spices of your choice, sometimes just plain salt and pepper are enough. This may be the simplest recipe I’m posting this month. Again, if you have leftover rice, potatoes, or noodles, feel free to add them in. We found the veggies and chicken to be a fine dinner on its own, especially if you’re going lower carb for meals.

Baked Chicken Thighs (serves 4)

4 chicken thighs

1 bunch of asparagus, woody ends snapped off

3 large carrots, cut into strips

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put chicken thighs in the middle of a baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes until lightly browned.

While chicken is baking, prepare your vegetables.

When the chicken comes out of the oven, tuck the carrots and asparagus around the thighs. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and return to oven for another 25 minutes.

Serve with pan juices drizzled over both the chicken and vegetables. Enjoy!

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up

Have you picked up that we eat a LOT of chicken? Yep, that’s cause it’s easy, cheap, and you can fix it a million ways. I’ve only found, over the years, a couple of chicken recipes that DH didn’t like. DH liked that in this dish the chicken flavor really came through when it was not masked by herbs or sauces.

Preview of Prime Rib and Punishment AND a Recipe from Book Two

My two cooks, Alli and Gina are struggling to make ends meet with their personal chef business at the end of Mission Impastable. As only an author can do, in book two, Prime Rib and Punishment, I create part-time jobs for them working for a martinet of a chef at a newly-opened cooking school. I want them to succeed, right? But …

Things don’t go well from the beginning, and then there’s the murder that implicates Alli. And all those police questions. Sigh! She sets out to prove her innocence, but suspects abound making the task difficult. Was it the underworld guy? The berated student? The weight loss guru? The under-appreciated chef? The victim’s wife? The school owner? The school owner’s wife? Or was it …?

Despite the odds, you know Alli. She’s an intrepid gal!

Spoiler Alert: Alli solves the crime! But then you knew that would happen, didn’t you?

As you also know, titles in the “Dinner is Served” series signal the focus for the majority of the recipes. Lots of pasta in Mission Impastable. In Prime Rib and Punishment, there’s a focus on meat recipes. Want a little taste of a recipe in PR&P? Here is a recipe I created just the other night for DH and me.

Cheesy Chicken Fingers

<serves 2-4 depending on sides>

1# Chicken breast, cut into tenders

¼ c butter, melted

½ c flour with

salt, pepper to taste

1 t garlic powder

1 egg, beaten

½ c bread crumbs

1 T basil

¼ c Asiago Cheese

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare baking pan.

Mix together bread crumbs, basil, and cheese

Roll chicken tenders in butter.

Dredge in flour mixed with salt, pepper, and garlic powder

Roll in beaten egg

Dredge in bread crumb mixture

Bake for ~20 minutes (until crispy brown) turning halfway through

Cranberry Sauce:

½ cup cranberry jelly

juice of small orange (with some pulp)

1 T tarragon

Honey-Mustard Sauce:

Equal amounts of mustard and honey blended well

Enjoy this with your favorite sides. We had a green salad and mandarin orange noodles.

Month-of-Chicken: Buttermilk Chicken

You know, I hate buttermilk. I can’t stand the way the glass looks after someone drinks it. Since Big Mama’s been visiting, however, we keep it in the fridge for her. She likes it. Go figure! The things you do for your parents!

What surprises me is how much I love to cook with buttermilk. This chicken dish. Oatmeal muffins. My corn bread is to die for! (She says, not at all modestly.) So it’s really no hardship to have it in the house for her. In fact, I’m going to cut her back because we’re low on muffins.

When Big Mama cooks buttermilk chicken, she soaks it overnight and into the next day. I think it is an old farm trick to tenderize tough old chickens for dinner eating. The acid in the buttermilk does a number on the meat fibers, and the meat is infused with a level of moistness most chicken dishes can only dream of!

This chicken recipe adds a bit of sugar to tame the buttermilk. This is one of my company dishes. I can get this in the oven two hours before we eat and clean the kitchen so no one even knows there is dinner to be served. Except for the aroma, of course. Delectable odors emanate from this baked chicken dish.

Buttermilk Chicken (Serves 6)

1 c buttermilk

½ t salt

½ t pepper

1 T sugar

6 chicken thighs

1 T dried tarragon

In a zipper gallon bag, thoroughly mix the buttermilk, salt, pepper, and sugar. Let sit while you wash and pat dry the chicken.

Mush the buttermilk mixture again and add the chicken. Seal and refrigerate for 6-8 hours. Turn the bag over a few times so the mixture coats all sides evenly.

Preheat oven to 250°. Remove chicken from buttermilk and rinse off the mixture thoroughly. Pat dry and place in baking dish. Sprinkle tarragon over the top.

Bake for 2 hours uncovered. This is a forgiving dish with time. If you leave it in for 2½ hours, it will be just as good.

When you remove it from the oven, spoon some of the au jus over the top to moisten the herbs. Serve with fruited rice.

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up! This is a family favorite dish. There’s not one thing he’d change about it! Big Mama almost licked her plate!

Month-of-Chicken: NotFried Chicken

Do love the crispy coating on a piece of fried chicken about as much as what lies underneath? Me, too. But, sigh, we ALL know, don’t we, that that is not the wisest food choice.

What’s a tongue to do?

Well, you can simulate that crispy crunch with an oven-baked version that is savory and fights back more than limp skin. Try this one tonight, and see if it doesn’t satisfy that hankering for fried chicken sorta, kinda.

NotFried Chicken (serves 6)

1 c buttermilk

6 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless

3 T olive oil

2 clove garlic, minced

1 c seasoned dry bread crumbs

1 c Asiago cheese, shredded

1 t tarragon, dried

Soak chicken in buttermilk for several hours.

Preheat oven to 350º. Pam a baking dish.

Mix oil and garlic. In another bowl, combine bread crumbs with the cheese and tarragon.

Rinse chicken and pat dry. Spread oil mixture over each piece then press into bread crumb mixture. Place in baking dish. Pour any remaining crumb mixture over top of the chicken. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until juices run clear (about 165º).

I like to serve this with whole wheat egg noodles tossed with a sautéed mixture of olive oil, garlic slices, and green onions.

DH’s Rating: 4 Tongues Up. Moist, tender with a crispy crust. He didn’t like the tarragon flavor (“too green”). Next time I’ll use basil.