Chicken "Parmishan"

Ha. Ha. I am so clever. This is my variation on Chicken Parmesan, also a variation on this recipe (mostly because that recipe uses the word "plonk").

What you need:

• 1 chicken breast per person (frozen is fine, with rib meat is fine, whatever. if it's frozen, you'll have to thaw it in the microwave first)
• some spinach (a few handfuls, enough to fill the bottom of your baking dish...speaking of which...)
• a baking dish. mine is square, because I felt like using a square one. I think it's 9x9. It might be 8x8. I have no idea.
• marinara sauce of some sort (I had about 1/2 a jar leftover in the fridge, and it was enough)
• herbs of your choice (I used fresh rosemary, basil, oregano and lemon verbena. dried herbs would be ok too if you don't have fresh.)
• cheese. cheese. cheese. (I used cheddar, parmesan and mozzarella. erm, string cheese.)
• balsamic and olive oil, just a swirl or two of each. my olive oil has lemon in it. yours doesn't have to. you could actually skip the olive oil - it ended up having a little too much oil in the dish still after baking.
  
• tomatoes - I used cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
  
• tin foil
  

How you do it:

• pre-heat your oven to 375F
• put your chicken in the microwave to thaw (unless you thought ahead to put it in the fridge before you left for work. I did not. thus, microwave.). Your micro probably has a defrost setting - mine is fancypants and has a defrost-poultry button. I just pushed it, and it defrosted for about 13 minutes, slightly cooking the edges. I'm ok with that.
• while chicken is thawing, prepare the baking dish
  
• put spinach in
• put a few spoonfuls of sauce on spinach
• swirl/drizzle balsamic and oil
• put herbs in (not basil)

• use spoon to swoosh it all around until it's mixed pretty well

• put cheddar cheese on top of spinach/saucy mix.
  

• put chicken on top of cheese.

• put cut tomatoes around the chicken
  
• put bits of mozzarella on top of chicken (I used both string cheesy strips and little discs that I sliced. because I'm fancy.)
  
• sprinkle lots of parmesan on top of that
• more mozzarella over it all
• cut basil into cute little strips if you want to be pretty about it, or just cut it into small bits. whatever. it's your meal. put the basil on top of it all.

• cover dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes
• take foil off and bake for another 15 minutes
• let it sit for 5 minutes (don't burn yourself!), and then eat!

fresh out of the oven...mmmmm

I served with Trader Joe's eggplant cutlets (above) and some homemade garlic toast (secret family recipe).

Delicious!