Jan. 9 - Chicken Parm Sub

I've been wanting to copy a chicken parmesan sub that a fellow MOMS Club member made for me when Luke was born, and I thought that since my mom was in for the night it was better for four mouths to attack it than three. I was geared up to make it, but a screaming (hungry!) baby kept me on the couch while mom made it as I shouted instructions to her. I think it tasted all the more delicious that I didn't have to make it?!?

This one doesn't have a formal recipe since I pretty much made it up as I went (and for the sake of easy posting, I'm pretending I actually made it myself). I bought a large loaf of Italian bread from Wegmans and brushed it with garlic butter. Then, I tossed four slices of provolone cheese on each side.

Setting that aside, I cooked a bag of Tyson chicken strips in the oven (400 degrees F for about 15 - 20 minutes, flipping half-way through cooking time; leave the oven on for later). Once finished, I cut them into bite-size chunks and mixed them into my home-made spaghetti sauce (I'll post that recipe below!).

I then took the chicken and sauce and scooped it into the loaf and cooked it until the cheese melted (about 5 or 10 minutes). And voila! Chicken parmesan on a garlic bread loaf. DELICOUS! It was a bit messy (we used a fork to eat the stuff that fell out), but definitely scrumptious. I think if we wouldn't have cut the whole way through the loaf it may have held better (just cut to about one inch on each side). It wasn't long to make - heat the sauce up when you cook the chicken, and butter the bread and lay the cheese down during that time, too. Prep time is almost nonexistent since it coincides with cook time, which was about 30 minutes max. If you use Perdue chicken strips instead of the frozen Tyson strips, it would probably take a whopping 10 or 15 minutes between prep and cook time. Here's the finished product!

Here's my spaghetti sauce recipe:

Spaghetti Sauce

Ingredients
3/4 cup onion
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 (28 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 bay leaf
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onion is translucent. 
2. Stir in tomatoes, salt, sugar and bay leaf. 
3. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 90 minutes. 
4. Stir in tomato paste, basil, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and meatballs and simmer 30 minutes more. 

The thing I love best about this spaghetti sauce is that it makes almost 4 dinners worth. I freeze mine in tupperware and then pull one out the morning I plan to use it. I actually prefer this recipe to jarred sauce (which I was always a fan of). Hope you enjoy this one...we sure did! Let me know if you try it.