Guess what I did!!! I invented a recipe!!!
Actually, I invented two of them.
So, the first one I invented about 10 years ago. Once upon a time I was babysitting my little brothers, and I needed to figure out what to feed them. I kinda grabbed a bunch of ingredients and threw them into a casserole dish. It turned out fantastic!
A couple nights ago, I decided to attempt a recreation of that event. I remembered it had macaroni noodles and cream of mushroom soup. I figured stuffing would probably go well with that, and when I was at the store buying the soup, I came across crispy onions. Mmmmmmmm!!!!!!
Suicide Casserole:
So, I got home, boiled the noodles, cooked up some stuffing, added liberal amounts of cheese, and stirred it all together with cream of mushroom soup. Added more cheese. Topped with onions. Baked at 350 until the cheese melted.
It. Was. AMAZING!!!
Yes, I am arrogant enough to toot my own tooter over my own recipe.
But it was a really good recipe!
And that was nothing compared to the chicken.
So, at work we had a cooking contest thing. It's apparently an event my new team does for every holiday. The theme was bacon.
I wanted to do a chicken bacon something or other, but I don't know how to cook chicken without drying it out. So, my roomie Stephanie gave me a recipe for Italian breaded chicken. Breading seals in the moisture, apparently. I went to the store and bought the ingredients, only instead of getting Italian croutons for the breading, I found bacon croutons! Then I started thinking. Without the Italian croutons, I couldn't figure how Parmesan cheese would go well with this.
So I came home, crushed the croutons, and made up my own ingredients, following the Italian chicken's cooking instructions.
In short - I invented a recipe!
If any of my one reader would like to try it, here is my recipe:
Bacon Breaded Chicken:
Okay, so the first thing you
have to do is acquire a flock’s worth of chicken
breasts. There are a variety of ways to do this.
You can raise them from hatchlings (not recommended
as eating your hatchlings leads to emotional
disorders and possibly becoming a serial killer who
wraps small children in eggs, wraps those eggs in
bubble wrap/newspaper/cardboard/etc., and drops them
off tall buildings to see if they crack), or you go
into the country with a shot gun and just raid some
old farmer. If you lack creativity, you can get
them at the store. Boneless is recommended.
Making the breading:
To make the breading, go to
the store and buy bacon-flavored croutons. Put them
in a stone basin, and stir them with a giant stick
until they are all crumbly. Powdery is good, but
you’ll want to make sure it’s not 100% powder, as
the larger chunks make for more breading and are
therefore fantabulous.
Next you add spices. Take a
thing of garlic salt and sprinkle a thin layer over
the top of your container of crushed croutons.
Handle the food liberally until either the garlic
salt is mixed in, or somebody tells you that’s
really gross, and you insist that it’s just fine
because you washed your hands, and they ask what
brand of soap you used, and you can’t answer, and
they insist that is grounds to report you to the FDA
for a health code violation, but you point out that
since you’re not feeding the public and/or making
money off said finger-mixed crouton and salt mixture
they can’t do that, and they pitch a fit that you’re
making their OCD act up, and you wrap them bubble
wrap and throw them off a tall building.
After that you add Lawry’s
Seasoned Salt. It must be Lawry’s. Any
other seasoned salt is not worth its (har har)
salt. This you add liberally until you feel like it
smells enough like seasoned salt to be passable at
any redneck affair.
Then comes the bacon. Fry it
up. Make it crispy. Grab it right away after
taking it out of the pan, then hop in a circle
holding your hand because you now have a grease burn
on your fingers. Wait for it to cool. Crumble it
up. Add it to the breading mixture. Toss like a
salad.
Only it’s not a salad.
It’s breading.
Yeah.
Breading the chicken:
Personally, I recommend
filleting your chicken breasts. Just get a really
sharp sword, toss it in the air, and slice it long
ways through the middle, making it half as thick as
it used to be. That 1.) makes it cook faster and
2.) gives you more chicken breasts. If you’re “too
cool” to own that sharp of a sword, then say
farewell to your nerd card and use a knife.
When they’re nice and
filletified, melt some butter. Roll the chicken
breast in the butter, then roll it in the breading,
which you have, of course, laid out in a flatter
dish than whatever bowl you were using to crush/mix
it. Make sure the breast is absolutely smothered in
breading. When all your breasts are buttered and
breaded stick ‘em on a cookie sheet (with no-stick
spray on it) and chuck ‘em in the over.
Cooking the chicken:
350 degrees.
30-45ish minutes.
“ish” being the operative
word.
“ish” is not, in fact, a word.
Random fact.
Let them cook long enough to
be cooked all the way through, but not dry.
Breading is nice because it seals in the moisture,
but if you cook them for too long, they’ll dry out
and taste like they came from Wal-Mart’s deli.
Happy cooking!!!
