Chicken Parmagiana with chips and green beans

DP's favourite

An oldie, but a goodie for us tonight. Everyone has their own way to make this dish, but I find mine particularly easy, so I thought I might share.

First, you fry a chicken schnitzel for each person. Just until golden and crunchy, it'll finish cooking through later.

Fried schnitzel

Then, place in an oven tray, and spoon a generous amount of tomato-y stuff on. I'll either use flavoured tomato paste (like the pizza kind from the mini yogurt tubs, like I did tonight) or pasta sauce from a jar. If it's a tight fortnight, or the pasta sauce has been used up already, then I'll just use plain tomato paste and add some herbs.

Mmmm, saucy!

Cover each piece of chicken with a slice of ham, or bacon (raw or fried) to your liking. I used to use bacon, because we always have that in the house, but lately I've been buying ham especially for the parmas, because DP likes it better that way, and I usually make this for him. We all like it, but he's the one who asks for it ;) Then cover the lot with cheese. Just plain tasty works fine, though of course fancier cheeses give a fancier taste. If you use a disposable tray like I do (when I have them) just cover the lot, and don't worry about the gaps in between. If you are using a 'keeper' tray, then try to avoid getting too much cheese on the tray because it's a pain in the neck to clean off.

Cheese to the left of me, Ham to the right...

Serve with whatever. I usually have oven bake chips and some sort of microwaved vegies. The green beans tonight really went nicely with the strong taste of the parmesan cheese I sprinkled on top to finish up the packet. It was a lovely, if somewhat fiddly dinner. But this way is heaps easier than the recipes I saw online when I first started making this.

And I need easy dinners, because who wants to be in the kitchen when you could be playing with him:

My mum says he looks like Papa Smurf in this outfit. Hasn't he grown?

He was 12 weeks old yesterday. Doesn't time fly?