Shortcut Skillet Chicken Parm

Dearests,

We are gearing up to head back to Hudson next week and in the spirit of not wasting things, I am deep in “you can’t take it with you!” mode. I welcome this challenge as does my compost, which is often overflowing. Did you know it’s mandatory to compost in Nova Scotia? A good mandate I believe indeed.

Earlier this week, I found a number of bone-in, skin-on, chicken thighs in my freezer. I roasted them slowly over thinly sliced new potatoes scattered with lots of thyme, rosemary and garlic and tossed with a plentiful amount of olive oil. Given that there are only two of us, I had a number of thighs leftover. After a day off with stone soup for dinner in between it was time to use up the remaining meat. It’s been cold, windy and rainy with a threat of tropical storm on the side, and I wanted something comforting. I remembered I had decent amount of passata and fresh mozzarella in the fridge from weekend pizza activities and it was off to the races. I would make us a Shortcut Skillet Chicken Parm. Chad never says no to anything with red sauce…

Given the chicken thighs were already cooked, this came together quickly. I preheated my oven to 375 degrees and made a quick marinara by sautéing two thinly sliced shallots (any allium will do, I just have a lot of them right now), 4 cloves of finely chopped garlic and a good pinch of dried oregano and red pepper flakes. I added in about 3 cups of passata and let it all simmer for about 20 minutes. I then nestled in the chicken thighs and spooned a bit of sauce from around the pan on top of each thigh and added a good amount of the torn mozzarella both on top of each piece as well as some more around the pan. I slipped it in to the oven for about 20 more minutes allowing the cheese to gently melt. Right before serving I spooned some panko on top of everything followed by some grated pecorino and broiled it until golden. I let it sit for about 15 minutes before serving and added some very on-its-way-out looking basil on top. We served it with a toasted baguette and the remains of a head of iceberg salad dressed with red wine vinaigrette. It was amore!

Tonight I’ll be pillaging once again. I have ground lamb, some chops and beef short ribs in my freezer that need to be utilized over the next nine days. This is great news for you albeit a little overwhelming for me…

I’d love to hear what your clean out the fridge meals are. Give each other (I’ll take some too) some inspiration!

See you soon.

Love,

Colu