How to cook chicken parmesan if you are me, right now, today.
Wash dishes in the bathroom sink. Wonder if it will back up. Get dirty water and remnants of rice all over the counter, and damn the fact that you are washing dishes in your bathroom sink. The kitchen sink died last Sunday morning. There will be no funeral. The building manager saw it this morning, just after you had awoken with the startling pain of a pinched nerve or smasming back muscle or something equally clinically minimal but physically debilitating.
Defrost enough chicken, approximately two plates full. Type in "1 pound" on the microwave's automatic defroster, knowing full well that it's not one pound but never knowing the right amount to put in. Trust that it will defrost properly. Meanwhile, cut fresh basil and fresher Italian parsley. Just scoot that raw defrosted chicken out of the way. It's all ending up in the same glass Pyrex plate anyway. Admire the Pyrex plate. Wonder what Pyrex actually indicates, if anything. Snap back into momentary awareness of what you are doing. Fill a bowl with bread crumbs. Try a spoon of bread crumbs. Decide that they taste like powderized croutons, which is to say awful.
Somehow manage to filter enough water in the Brita to fill the gigantic silver pot for the spaghetti. Put the dry, long noodles in just as the last of the chicken finishes defrosting. Crack the eggs and beat their contents, halve the breasts, and douse them ceremoniously, their baptism. Realize that you are drowning chickens in chicken babies. Cackle maniacally, then regret your cruel taunt, then laugh some more. Bury the breasts in bread crumbs and uncover them like artifacts, then lay them in situ in the Pyrex tray. Smatter them with the herbs (even though you're not sure they'll make any difference that way) and throw them in the oven.
Remember that you've also been cooking noodles. Feel momentary relief when realizing they've only been in the water approximately a minute. Rush a bowl, the cutting board, and a plastic storage container to the bathroom, forgetting the dishwashing brush that dispenses its own detergent. Remember the dishwashing brush that dispenses its own detergent, yet again damn the sink situation, and wonder when it will be fixed. Return to the kitchen, clean dishes in hand.
Notice a loud cymbal-like sound emanating constantly and insistently from outside. Look out the window. Positively identify this mysterious and hitherto (this year) unknown sound as what scientists call "rain." Remember the noodles again, freak out, then calm down again. Grate a large wedge of parmesan cheese. Try a little. Try a little more. Try a little more. Stop trying it, or there won't be any left. Perceive that the cutting board is yet again soiled. Go to the bathroom for the aforementioned non-bathroom-related reasons, rinse, repeat. Grab the mozzarella and the marinara sauce from the refrigerator, and prepare for assault.
Grab the Pyrex from the oven (with the oven mitts that are square shaped, but probably aren't called "oven squares") and set it on the counter. Breasts are breasts (the breast of all), you notice, and dither in confusion while trying to determine if they've cooked enough. Answer your question when pouring the sauce over the breasts and hearing them sizzle in response. The sizzle tells you it's working. Also, the sizzle after the sizzle tells you it's still raining.
Empty all of one bottle of sauce over the breasts, and most of the second. Leave just the perfect amount of sauce in the bottle. Congratulate yourself; this is your victory. Touch the handles of the Pyrex with both hands and burn yourself. Damn yourself; this is your defeat. Dispense with the mozzarella, and put at least 3/4 cup of parmesan .. to try to fill in all non-whitened spots. Question why the recipe didn't actually call for parmesan cheese. Wallow in your better judgment, your sore fingertips.
Just about now, the noodles are done. Kill the burner (violently, with but a wave of the hand, for that is the power of humans), and toss the now-parmesan-enhanced chicken parmesan baby into the oven to gestate. Start putting spaghetti into the strainer and yet again realize that you have done what you always do when buying pasta: cooking twice as much as any reasonable person could ever hope to consume in a lifetime. Namely, two pounds. Leave approximately 3/4 pounds of pasta and a whole mess of water in the pot. It looks like this:
Dither. Stand around some more. Turn on the light in the oven again, and watch it. Observe the cheese begin to melt. Salivate profusely. Gird your loins. Consider making the salad you bought. Decide immediately against it, and go to the bathroom to wash dishes to eat with, return to kitchen. Realize you actually have to use the bathroom for bathroom-related purposes, and return to the bathroom.
Dispense a bowl of spaghetti and store the rest immediately in the rectangular green plastic container. Note how it fits the strainer's contents of spaghetti, and not a single noodle more. Lament the wasted quarter-pot full of watery noodles. Alas, they will be left to drown. Remove the chicken parmesan, now done, now beautiful from the oven. Serve up the chicken, and use a scoop or so of the sauce for the spaghetti. Serve up another piece of chicken soon after. Like a pig in slop, you are. Lose even all memory of what dignity once felt like. Once again consider salad. Once again immediately decide against it.
Foil the Pyrex and refrigerate it. Write rambling nonsensical blog entry about the process. Realize you hadn't actually included the recipe yet. Include it as a half-assed afterthought. Close the deliciously recursive second tense blog entry with the recipe:
Oven-Baked Chicken Parmesan
8 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, verbally insulted
1 mess of fresh basil and Italian parsley, cut to holy hell
2 eggs, beaten but not demoralized
1 1/2 cups Italian seasoned dry bread crumbs - just put the whole tin in, because you won't do anything else with bread crumbs
2 jars (52 ounces or so) of marinara sauce (Rao's Homemade is delicious)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 400°F. Dip chicken in egg, then bread crumbs and herbs, coating well. In a 13"x9" glass baking dish that rhymes with Highrex, arrange chicken into a recreation of Michelangelo's Pietà. Or simply flat and dispersed in the dish. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes. (If using a metal pan, set oven at 425 degrees. If Sarah Palin, set oven at 451 degrees - and insert newspapers, magazines, and head.)
Pour the marinara sauce over chicken, then top with cheese. It is impossible to use too much cheese, but try anyway. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink, even though there's no way you could possibly tell, so try to psychically read the breasts (even though that got you arrested in Vegas once). Serve with hot cooked pasta that you made way too much of. Makes 8 servings, a second-tense blog entry that eats itself, and hopefully leftovers for the rest of the week.