PRIZE-WINNING HERBED BAKED CHICKEN

I can easily understand why I have friends who do very little cooking anymore. With all of our traveling this winter and eating out, it takes a special effort on my part to get in the kitchen and cook. I guess it is just good that we are both trying to lose weight and feel like "eating out" makes it harder to do so. 

I bought skinless chicken breasts frozen two in a bag at a popular warehouse store a while back. I had taken a bag out to defrost in the refrigerator on Sunday and just needed to find a recipe to cook them. I found this recipe in the second cookbook I picked up. I have found so many great recipes in the Hochstedler Family Cookbook, a collection of edible treasures from the family of Emanuel and Mattie Hochstedler.
Carmella Walters and Shirley Hochstedler contributed the recipe. Shirley was the wife of Verl, eighth child of Emanuel and Mattie. In the directions for the recipe, they said, "This recipe won 1st prize in our Howard County cooking contest a few years ago in the poultry division."

The recipe calls for 6 skinned chicken breasts. I always cook with skinless chicken breasts and when cooking for just Wayne and me, I only used 2 (large) chicken breast and cut them into strips so it would cook faster and have leftovers easier. I also cut the recipe in half for the most part (I actually increased the garlic powder to 1/4 teaspoon and used that full amount in my half version.) I then measured out half of the mixture and put it in a ziplock bag to use another time. I will show the original recipe and put my amounts in parentheses after.

HERBED BAKED CHICKED

2       cups bread crumbs (1 cup homemade crumbs)
3/4    cup Parmesan cheese (1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons)
1/4    cup chopped parsley (2 tablespoons)
1/8    teaspoon garlic powder (I used 1/4 teaspoon)
2       teaspoon salt (I used about 1/2 teaspoon)
2       teaspoon pepper (1 teaspoon)
1       stick butter, melted (I used 1/3 cup)
6       skinned chicken breasts (I used 2 large skinless breasts)
3/4    teaspoon paprika (I forgot the paprika 😞)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, parsley, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a bowl with a whisk. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a dish that is flat but with sides. (I did change baking dishes to a cookie sheet because I couldn't fit all my strips in the dish.)

Prepare chicken (if you are going to cut into strips as I did).

Dip chicken pieces in butter, and

then in dry ingredients. Place on baking sheet and sprinkle with paprika.

Bake uncovered for 1 hour. (Less if you baking fewer pieces.)

Here is the part I saved for another time.