Meals for Busy Families: No time to catch my breath

In years past, January has been a relatively quiet month with extra time to catch up on sewing and home improvement projects. Typically, I spend the month after the busy holiday season to get my house organized and back to a more orderly state. For some reason, this January has been like no other and there has been no time for cleaning or organizing or even cooking dinner.

Last weekend we were in Macon for the state duals wrestling tournament. My son's team ended up taking 5th in state! They're a great group of kids who worked really hard to achieve their goals - they deserved every win that they celebrated last weekend.

Even though we had Monday to recuperate from our busy weekend, we didn't get much rest. I took advantage of the fact that the kids were home and we set out to run our errands. We got haircuts, stopped by the grocery store and the meat market. We even managed to fit in an orthodontist appointment. We got a lot accomplished but we got home kind of late which meant that once again, I had to hurry to get dinner on the table. I pulled out one of my favorite "go to" meals to feed my family a quick and easy dinner last night - Chicken Parmesan.

I started with a few simple ingredients and managed to get dinner on the table in under 45 minutes. (I probably could have done it a little quicker if I didn't stop to take pictures of everything.)

Spaghetti, marinara sauce, thin sliced chicken breasts, mozzarella cheese, eggs and panko bread crumbs = baked chicken Parmesan.

I started my dinner by breading the chicken. I put the eggs in one bowl, flour in another and panko in the third bowl.

I dipped each chicken breast in the flour,

then in the beaten egg,

and then the panko bread crumbs.

I put the breaded chicken breasts on a foil lined baking sheet and baked them for 25 minutes at 350. (My baked version is not quite as good as pan fried chicken cutlets but it's a little healthier.)