President's Day

Parm chicken:

I don't have the original recipe anymore but it was so simple. Here's how I'd make it next time:

4 chicken breasts, either sliced thin or pounded flat
2 cups fine saltine crumbs (let your kids make these for you)
1 T basil
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 eggs, beaten thoroughly so you don't have any egg white intact
dash salt
Fav. spaghetti sauce
1/4 cup parm cheese
4-6 ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced
Angel hair pasta

Heat oven to 375°. Make sure your chicken is thawed and thin. You can either use a mallet to do this or slice it. Mix the crumbs with basil, garlic powder, and pepper. In separate bowl, mix egg and dash salt. Heat oven-proof skillet on medium to medium-high heat and coat cooking surface with non-stick spray. Dip chicken in egg, then in cracker crumbs on both sides. Add to skillet. Brown crumbs and flip. Brown crumbs on the other side. Don't be shy about this -- you want a good, medium brown. Add spaghetti sauce to the skillet but don't cover the chicken completely. Top each slice with a sprinkle of parm and mozzarella. Bake uncovered for 15-20 mins. Test chicken with an instant read thermometer. Serve with cooked angel hair pasta.

The thing on Friday turned out ok. I thawed the chicken to find that all of it was thin sliced. So, not only did she triple the recipe on paper, I think she tripled the chicken from the tripling of the recipe. So, what started out as a recipe for 4 thin slices of chicken ended up being 36 pieces of chicken per batch. The pasta got made right away and tossed with the sauce, and divided among the two roasting pans. My two largest skillets were working full time for about an hour and a half. As a result of the shoddy proportioning I ran out of bread crumbs before I was 1/4 of the way through the chicken. The bags that were used to portion out the ingredients all broke so the cheese was everywhere, the oil leaked all over everything, and the bread crumbs got oil in them. I sent Man to church with the first pan once it came out of the oven but he called from church to let me know that there was twice as much food as necessary there. So, the bishop's wife is having us freeze the second huge batch of parm chicken and keep it on hand for any need that might come up in the ward. Hah! She said that one half would be about a family sized meal, right? I don't know if she realized that there were about 18 servings of meat per half, but I cut it down the middle and put freezer paper into the cut, wrapped the whole thing in foil, and I'm hoping that I can just give this to her one of these Sundays before we move and I just won't have to deal with it. One of those halves should feed a large family for 2-3 days.

On the other hand, now I know how to make an impossibly large batch of chicken parm as long as I don't have tiny people wrapping themselves around my legs while massive amounts of bacteria attempt a coup in my tonsils. I just don't have time for that sort of political drama on a Friday afternoon.

The activity itself was creative and fun. There was a cake walk, V-day bingo using picture riddles, and it was nice to chat with grownups for a change.

We spent Saturday cleaning the house and running errands. I stayed home from church on Sunday with the baby and finally got the sleep my body craved. Man also let me nap Monday. I can finally get along without pain killer and huge mugs of tea.

Not sure how to end this, so how about a positive note....

Pebbles is very close to being fully potty trained. The last step is the night diaper. I'm not sure what it's going to take to make that leap but I'm hopeful that we'll soon have just one little person in diapers.