Worried Tomato! You know what that means. I forgot to take a picture. But, that's okay, since it also means I made something!

Last night was a "personal meal" which is something I'll be trying for a while; in short, making an experimental recipe for myself while I use a safe recipe for Megan. That way if something goes wrong, I only have to go out to get food for one person, rather than two. Efficient!

So while Megan ate Chicken di Ketchup and ample amounts of the Roasted Cauliflower we made, I tried Chicken Marinara.

Chicken Marinara
Recipe can be found here

If I had learned nothing from my previous cooking endeavors, its that when you're cooking for two (or one, in this case) the quantities involved in the recipe simply do not apply. As you can see in the recipe itself, it is meant to serve six. A more mathematical soul might try to simply reduce the ingredient quantities down to 1/6th of their original design, but that sounds complicated. After all, how exactly am I supposed to use 1/3rd of an egg?

Ingredients I used:
-1/2 a container of Buitoni garlic marinara sauce (I had this leftover from the previous night's dinner)
-Bread crumbs
-Kraft Parmesan Cheese
-1 egg, beaten
-Flour
-Olive Oil

At the moment I'm housesitting for Megan's parents, so I had a different kitchen (which was nice) but also slightly limited resources (they took a lot of their utensils with them on their trip.)

The first steps are pretty standard for pan-seared chicken. Apply flour to the chicken, then coat it in the egg, then coat again in a mixture of Parmesan and bread crumbs. I didn't measure any of that, just used enough to cover the chicken breast.

Then, put olive oil in a pan and preheat it. I didn't actually have a pan, so I used a pot. Drop the chicken into the pan and sear on each side for about 4 minutes.

Now, while I may have remembered not to use the quantities of ingredients, I did forget that when pan cooking chicken you need to pound it out to make it thinner. While my chicken had a perfect outer-coating, the inside was still under-cooked. This ended up not being a problem, though! Since Megan's Chicken di Ketchup is cooked in the oven, I just put my chicken into the oven at 450 for ten minutes. Perfect!

Drop the pre-made marinara sauce onto it (after microwaving it out of refrigeration), add some extra Parmesan cheese, and you're in business! Total success!

Ta-da! Matt made me this banner a while ago and I haven't had an occasion to use it yet. This seemed to be as good a time as any!

Well, as previously stated, this is going to be a record of possible chicken seasonings for our usual method (bake at 450 for 20 minutes coated lightly with olive oil.) This first foray didn't go very well...

Seasoning Ingredients
-1/2 Tsp of Paprika
-1/2 Tsp of Salt
-1/2 Tsp of Ground Pepper
-1/2 Tsp of Onion Powder

Results: HORRIBLE ):

I don't know why I thought this would be good. Firstly, a 1/2 Tsp is too much for a single chicken breast. Informal measurements should be used just to lightly coat the meat rather than make a scrapable layer of it.

Second, if you've ever had seasoning salt on fries, this is basically the recipe, except switch out the ground pepper for garlic powder. So, I basically made seasoning salt chicken. And it was pretty awful. Maybe the same flavor in smaller quantities? Somehow I just don't see it working out.

One of the difficulties Megan and I have when it comes to the subject of cooking has very little to do with time or technique; it has to do with health. While making fun, amazing dishes is...well, fun and amazing, it isn't always the healthiest choice one could make.

And I have a hard time saying that she's wrong.

After all, one only has to watch an episode of "Paula's Party" on the Food Network to realize that the key to good eating is often five or six cups of butter. While these dishes might be fun and delicious, they're definitely not something one should be eating on a daily basis.

So most of the time, Megan and I just eat chicken and vegetables. It's boring, but it's healthy and it's relatively easy.

When I make the chicken, though, I usually do something to mine. Open the spice rack and throw something on there at random. Sometimes the results are really good, sometimes they're just adequate. But I got to thinking the other day that perhaps there could be a more thorough way to deal with my chicken diet. What if I started measuring the things I added to the chicken? What if I started recording it? What if I set out to find specific flavors?

So that's what I'm going to do.

My hope is that the results will develop a "suite of spices" that one can reference and utilize to create any taste of food possible while using the same, tried and true cooking method. I have no idea how many different flavors I'll be able to find. Heck, there might only be five. But it will hopefully engage my cooking brain while saving our arteries from the five cups of butter.

So if any of you have any chicken rubs (can you put a rub on a chicken? Have to look that up), marinades, or seasoning combinations, post in the comments or send me an email! Heck, if you have ones that don't even go on chicken, let me know anyway and I'll give it a shot.

Here's to chicken.