Slacking!

Seriously, one post last week? What the heck? Well, we'll do better this week, for sure. Especially since I am rapidly approaching 1000 hits on this blog. Sweet!

Well, this past week was very fun. We won at trivia again, and have enough of a reputation now that people mutter under their breath when we show up to play. That's sort of cool in a way. We give away most of our free drinks though, so that helps keep us from seeming like total jerks. I hope. Our quizmaster informed us that there's no quiz this week, which is a bit lame. We enjoy our weekly trivia night very much, so missing out even for just a week, will feel odd. On a positive note, the bar did get back on track with the "extra goodies" theme last week, giving each of us a t-shirt.

Thursday I went shooting with my dad, which is always a good time. I did well on both handguns and shotguns. We're consistently getting 19/25 or higher on the auto-trap which isn't too bad at all. I haven't gotten more than 21/25 yet, unfortunately. I think we'll keep getting better though, especially if we can start going more consistently.

Unfortunately, I also started feeling a bit wonky starting Tuesday night, extending through Wednesday and Thursday. Not terrible, just a bit of a head cold. I stayed home from work on Friday to recuperate. it did help, I think, though I still felt like crap all of Friday and all of Saturday. Jenna was also sick pretty much the same time I was, but it didn't seem to hit her as hard as it did me. She's a tough little wife. Thankfully, we both felt much better on Sunday morning, so we still go to play our Rifts game. I made Chicken Parmesan, which seemed to go over quite well. Below, find my recipe, as it stands.

Chicken Parmesan: Chicken, with some stuff on it.

Take some chicken breasts and clean them up. Get any weird dangly bits and obvious fat deposits removed, then dredge with flour. I'm told this step helps the actual breading from flaking off. Next, dip into thoroughly-beaten egg. Then, dip into a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Put into a covered skillet, cook until...cooked. Place in a dish, top with a slice of provolone cheese, then cover with foil and let sit for 10 minutes or so.

Pretty basic, eh? Here are some notes I have and questions that came up with this most recent attempt: First off, how do I keep the breading from sloughing off of my chicken? Even with the flour, it still happened. I cooked these on the stovetop instead of in the oven like I normally do, which may be part of the problem. Maybe cooking in the oven is a better bet? Maybe I need to cook them in a non-stick pan? I sprayed some olive oil in there, but that didn't seem to help much, especially after the first flip. Also, I noticed that the chicken breasts I used were very thick and bulky. This isn't bad if you're into a heck of a lot of chicken, but it means you're getting a lot less surface area for your good crusty stuff to hang onto. I'm thinking maybe I should pound these flat a bit so they're thinner, will cook faster, and will have more crust per unit of chicken.

I'm really hoping Kristie will read this and have some suggestions, since I like making this and even with the specified issues it turns out pretty well. I'd like to fix what problems I have with it so that it will be a consistent product worthy of serving to my friends and family without me having to worry about the chicken being cooked through or all the good crustiness flaking off and ending in a soggy pile on the plate somewhere, or worse yet in the cooking pan.