Easy Italian Dinner Night

The weekend that I came home for my sister's 22nd birthday (that post is on its way), my mom decided to make us a nice home-cooked Italian dinner Sunday night. Since I am now a professional food blogger (self-proclaimed), she enlisted my help with dinner. We decided to make Chicken Parmesan, baked eggplant, meatballs, pasta and broccoli rabe. 

Before we started cooking dinner my mom had already made a simple tomato sauce with Italian sausage. All you need to do is cook some chopped up Italian sausage in a pan, and then add it to whatever tomato sauce you decide to use (you can make your own or just heat up some store bought).

Joan's simple tomato sauce

Once the sauce was done we began with the eggplant dish. For this my mom kind of cheated on a step and bought pre-breaded eggplant.We have a nice little grocery store down the street from our house that sells some amazing pre-made food, so if you don't have the time to bread and cook your eggplant, than just buy the already made kind and call it a day.

So here are the ingredients you will need for this dish-
Eggplant Parm Layered Dish

• Breaded eggplant (the amount depends on how much you want to make)
• Sauce
• Ricotta Cheese
• Parmesan Cheese
• Mozzarella Cheese

Eggplant

After Joan decided to make this dish she realized we didn't have ricotta cheese. So she kind of made her own... this is why my mother is my inspiration.

Joan creating some makeshift ricotta

 We went through and did a layer of eggplant, covered it with ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, and then continued layering until we reached the top. We probably had about four layers total.

We applied more cheeses to the top layer, and then put it into the oven until the cheeses started to melt.

Since our oven was already pre-heated to 400, we just cooked the eggplant at 400 for approximately 15 - 20 minutes. Just make sure to keep your eye on it.

Ta-da!

After we finished the eggplant we started on the meatballs:

• Day old Italian bread (small chop)
• 1/2 veal & 1/2 beef
• egg
• Salt, pepper, and garlic salt to taste

When I make my meatballs I either use all beef or half-and-half, breadcrumbs, chopped basil, parmesan cheese and egg - But the great thing about meatballs is that there are so many different ways to make them. The Italian bread definitely created a lighter texture, and I must say that these are my favorite meatballs my mom has made. 

Once the ingredients are combined and formed into balls, they just need to be put in a greased pan, and baked in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Make sure that they are cooked completely through... smaller balls cook faster, bigger = slower... etc....

As our two other side dishes cooked, we began the main event... The Chicken Parm!

For chicken parm you need the following things...

• Chicken breasts
• Egg 
• Breadcrumbs
• Salt, pepper, & garlic salt
• Parmesan cheese
• Mozzarella cheese
• Oil

Step 1: Pound that chicken!

For chicken parm it is important that the chicken is not only tender, but that it's also thin enough so it cooks through all the way as the cheese melts. Also make sure to tenderize the chicken evenly.

Pound that chicken!

The mixtures

Step 2: After we finish tenderizing we create the two mixtures... one of just egg, and the other as a combination of breadcrumb, salt, pepper, garlic salt and parmesan cheese mixture. 

After you have coated all the breasts, the next step will be the quick pan fry. This step is optional - The pro is that you get a nice crunch on the chicken, the con is that you are frying the chicken and it's less healthy - it's truly up to you. If you decide not to fry them then make sure you leave them in the oven longer. 

For this pan fry, my mom and I used some canola and EVOO, and probably cooked the chicken about two minutes on each side (until they are golden brown and crispy). You want to make sure not to overcrowd the pan. Our pan allowed us to cook them two at a time. 

As the chicken finished, we made sure to line a baking sheet with a little bit of sauce (this is to make sure the breasts don't stick to the bottom) and then we began to place the breasts on the sheet. 

Lining the pan is an important step!

After all of the breasts were on the sheet, we layered the top with some more of the simple sauce, and then began to add the mozzarella cheese...

I used the shredded mozzarella, and I also sliced us some fresh mozzarella... I definitely prefer the way the fresh mozzarella melts over the chicken... 

So the final product pre-oven should look like this...

Cook the chicken in a 400 degree oven until the chicken is cooked through (approx 15 minutes, depending on thickness, and how much they cooked in the pan).

While the chicken was baking, we began boiling water for the pasta, and also started up a pan with some evoo to saute the broccoli rabes. 

Broccoli rabes are one of my favorite things to eat, and they are
so easy to make! Just heat up some oil, add some chopped garlic,
and a little s+p, and saute until they are cooked!

Make sure to serve everything with the remaining sauce, and also some fresh Italian bread. 

So yummy & delicious!

I should make note of the fact that we were cooking dinner for six people Sunday night. This was more than enough food for all of us, so you really don't need to make all of it at the same time.... In fact, any of these dishes could stand alone as the star of a meal.