Homemade Chicken Nuggets with Dipping Sauces and Fried Plantains

Recently, we went to an electronics/media/appliances superstore. While wandering aimlessly about in the appliances section (day dreaming about what great things I could make with all these new kitchen gadgets) I stumbled across a fairly expensive oven. I was so shocked when I looked at the 'control panel' part that I took a picture of it.

Notice the top middle button?

What kind of society are we living in that we have to have a button on our oven for frozen chicken nuggets? Seriously? When I showed Mike, he said I should do a blog post of homemade chicken nuggets and corresponding dipping sauces.


Shortly thereafter, while talking to a friend of mine, she told me that her eleven year old son wants to eat nothing but fast food chicken nuggets and fries. So I told her about Mike's idea for a chicken nuggets blog post and I told her I'd post it ASAP for her son. Maybe he'll appreciate the homemade more than the fast food. Not only is it better for you but you can play around with making your own personal dipping sauces too.

Instead of the traditional french fries that goes with chicken nuggets, I made fried plantains. Plantains are those dark green large bananas in the grocery store. I had these at a Cuban restaurant once and immediately came home and tried to make them myself; they were that good! Why not try them instead of fries? Maybe the kids will like them even better. And if not, well, more for you.

I did add a salad to this dinner, to counteract the fried foods.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

1 package organic chicken breast tenderloins
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 sleeve of Ritz Crackers
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
olive oil

In a heavy saute pan, add enough oil to cover the bottom. Heat on medium low heat.

In a food processor, add Ritz crackers, onion and garlic powders and cayenne pepper. Pulse until crackers are small crumbs. Pour crumbs into a shallow dish or bowl.

In another bowl, add flour and in a third bowl, add the eggs.

Remove chicken tenderloins from package and cut them in half. Coat each chicken piece in flour first, then egg, then cracker crumbs. When each piece is completely coated with cracker crumbs, place piece carefully into saute pan with hot oil. Repeat with all chicken pieces.

Cook chicken until golden brown on each side and fully cooked through. This will vary depending on your stove, pan and thickness of the chicken.

Remove chicken to a plate covered with a paper towel and allow to drain off excess oil.

Serve with your choice of dipping sauces.

Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup orange flavored vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tbsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp chili powder

In a saucepan, combine vinegars and sugar (if you don't have the orange vinegar, you can use 1/4 cup of white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar instead). Heat to boiling, then turn heat down and allow to simmer about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add garlic, red pepper flakes and chili powder. Stir well.

Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

5 tbsp honey
3 tbsp Dijon mustard (I like Grey Poupon)
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Mix extremely well.

Spicy Ketchup

1/2 cup ketchup
1 or 2 tbsp of your favorite hot sauce

Combine both in a bowl and mix well.

Fried Plantains

2 plantains, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
olive oil
salt

First off, the way you peel a plantain is this: cut off each end. With a sharp knife, slice one side of the plantain just through the skin from top to bottom. Using your finger nails or the tip of a knife, pry apart the skin and peel off.

Add enough olive oil to a frying pan to coat the bottom. Heat on medium heat. When oil is hot, carefully add sliced plantains to pan. Cook 2 minutes on each side.

Cover a cutting board with paper towel. Remove plantains from oil and arrange on cutting board. Cover with paper towel. Using a mallet, flatten each plantain. Return flattened plantains to hot oil for 1 minute on each side.

Remove to a plate covered with paper towel to drain excess oil and sprinkle with salt.

Enjoy.

Salad Dressings, Dips or Marindes

Have you every read the back of a salad dressing bottle? The ingredient list is filled with poly-syllabic words like monosulfosis and polydextrosonity (I made those up). And nothing tastes better than dressing you make at home. It's easy, tasty and made with the best ingredients you can get your hands on.

Granted, no dressing you make at home is going to have a shelf life of a hundred years but be honest, aren't you a little disturbed about how long store-bought dressing lasts, even after you open it?

Thought so.

In light of the above, I have assembled my three favorite (at least for now) make at home dressings.

Honey Mustard
Garlic Dijon Vinaigrette
Bacon Shallot Vinaigrette

Honey Mustard is the easiest thing I've ever made that tastes this good. This is great with chicken tenderloins coated in almond meal or crushed Ritz crackers and fried. It's also great with french fries and exceptional on salad with the aforementioned chicken cut up on top.

Ingredients:
5 tbsp good honey
3 tbsp good dijon (I like Grey Poupon)
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Directions: Mix extremely well. Yes, that's it. Just mix. I told you it was easy!

Garlic Dijon Vinaigrette is also extremely easy just with more ingredients. This is the dressing from my Panzanella recipe. It's just as fabulous as a marinade for chicken or on regular salad with feta cheese. Yum!

Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 cup good olive oil
4 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp basil
salt and pepper

Directions: Whisk vigorously.

Bacon Shallot Vinaigrette is a little bit more involved but if you have a blender, that will make it easier. I use this dressing on a salad that I make with chicken slices, grapes, dried cranberries, pistacios and pears. The slightly onion-y, saltyness of the dressing compliments the sweetness of the fruits quite nicely in my opinion.

Ingredients:

1 large garlic clove, chopped

1 small shallot, chopped1/2 cup olive oil
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp good honey
1 tbsp dried tarragon
2 slices cooked bacon
salt and pepper

In a small saute pan, add a little olive oil and the shallot and garlic clove. Cook a couple of minutes until golden brown. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. When cool, add to your blender. Add all the other ingredients to the blender. Blend.

I store all of these in the fridge in jam jars for about a week. Having homemade dressings completely made and on hand make dinners and lunches even easier. Marinade, dressing or dip, these three are a great addition to your fridge!

Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish (Whipped) Cream Frosting

 Okay, enough healthy stuff! With this recipe, I have reached cupcake utopia! These were amazing. The cupcake itself has Guinness in the batter and though it doesn't taste alcoholic-y, it does taste deliciously different. The cake itself is also extremely moist. The addition of whipped cream frosting with bailey's in it just takes the whole thing to another dimension. This recipe would probably make a great cake too but we are partial to cupcakes at this house, as you all know. I hope that if you make them, you find them as delicious as we did.

Guinness Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups Guinness stout
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup whole milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In the mixing bowl of your stand mixer (or a bowl with a hand mixer), combine the Guinness, olive oil, milk and vanilla. Beat in each egg, one at a time and then mix in the sour cream.
In another bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, sugar and baking soda, mixing well.  With the stand mixer on, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, being sure that everything is well mixed.

Line your cupcake pan with cupcake liners of your choice. Carefully add batter to a large ziploc bag or pastry bag. Snip end of ziploc bag. Squeeze enough batter into each cupcake liner so its 3/4 full.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out mostly clean. Cool completely before frosting. And when I say completely, I mean COMPLETELY unless you'd like to be cleaning up melted whipped cream frosting from off every surface in your kitchen. It will happen, I've been there.

Bailey's Irish (Whipped) Cream Frosting

2 cups heavy whipping cream
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream

In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the whipping cream and sugar. Beat into oblivion, until soft peaks form when you pull the beater out of the cream. Add bailey's and beat until thoroughly distributed. Store, covered, in refrigerator until ready to use.

When cupcakes are cool, put frosting into a pastry bag with a large star tip and pipe onto each cupcake. Or you could just dollop it onto each cupcake for a more homemade rustic look.  Enjoy.

Gluten-Free 'Pancakes'

I apologize for the horrible photo . The camera is broke so I'm using my phone.

As I said before, we are trying to eat a little healthier in this household. Pancakes with butter and peanut butter and maple syrup and chocolate chips really don't fall under the healthy eating category, although every now and then, they still make for a great indulgent breakfast. But what if you want pancakes but still want to be a little healthy, or what if you don't want/can't have the wheat in pancakes? I happened to find this great gluten-free pancake recipe. With some blueberries in the batter and a little almond butter on top with a little maple syrup, it's still mildly indulgent without the guilt.

Gluten Free Pancakes

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract or gf vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup all natural unsweetened applesauce (Trader Joe's has a really delicious brand)
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

In a medium bowl, beat eggs. Add almond flour, applesauce, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg to eggs and mix well. Stir in blueberries, gently. Meanwhile, heat a skillet sprayed with a little bit of olive oil. When skillet is hot, ladle about a 1/4 cup of batter onto the skillet. Repeat with as many as your skillet will hold.  Cook until little bubbles appear and you can easily flip the pancake. (Time will vary depending on your stove) Flip pancakes. Continue to cook until each pancake is cooked through. Remove to warm plate. Serve with a dollop of almond butter and maple syrup and a few berries on the side. 

Much thanks, again, to my cousin for her help with my gluten-free recipes!

Apple Chips

We've been trying to eat healthier in this household lately. It's not the easiest thing to do when it's cold and snowy and gross out and all you want to do is curl up inside with junk food and never leave the house, but we are trying. In an effort to find something that is snackable but in the category of "very healthy", I remembered eating apple chips as a child. I think we bought them in a bag at the health food superstore that my mother frequented when I was little. She was very health-conscious then...very, very health-conscious and therefore I blame her for my love of sweets and junk food. I was denied it in my young years so I'm making up for it now! I digress.

Anyway, back to eating healthy. Apple chips were crunchy unlike their dried apple counterparts and only slight sweet, but still delicious. So I decided to give it a shot. All the recipes I could find said to slice the apple into 1/16 inch slices. Any idea how difficult it is to slice a lopsided, slightly oblong apple into 1/16 inch slices? Nigh impossible, at least for me. Needless to say, I barely escaped with all of my fingers. I gave up then.

The next day, we went to Williams Sonoma where I bought a mandoline slicer, which is now my new best friend. This makes cutting 1/16 inch slices the easiest thing ever. That evening, I was in possession of a bowl full of apple chips! Success!

Well, minor success. My husband thinks they're gross and won't touch them. More for me then.

Apple Chips

2 large firm apples like Gala
Mandoline Slicer                                                  
Parchment Paper
Cookie Sheets

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Slice apples 1/16 inch thick according to your slicer's instructions. I also used a heart shaped fondant cutter to remove the core from a few of the slices. The other apple I cut in half and cored with a melon baller first.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place apples on parchment and then in oven.

Bake for two hours. Remove from oven to cool.

Be prepared to consume the entire bowl in one sitting. I did.

Gluten-Free Apple "Crisp"

So many are doing the gluten-free thing including a cousin of mine, so I decided to try some gluten-free recipes. Cutting down on the wheat isn't necessarily a bad thing anyway. I really love apple crisp but the topping is very carb and gluten heavy so I came up with a topping that isn't. And it turned out surprisingly good. It was crunchy and sweet and perfect on the cold snowy days we've been getting so much of.

Apple "Crisp"

2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 gala apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts
1 1/2  tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla or gf vanilla

Spray a baking dish with Pam spray (or its equivalent). Layer apples in baking dish and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp nutmeg.

In a bowl, combine almond meal, almonds, hazelnuts, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp nutmeg. Mix well.

In another small bowl, combine melted butter, maple syrup and vanilla.

Pour butter mixture over almond mixture and mix with a fork until it resembles coarse crumbs.

Dump the mixture over the apple and spread evenly.  Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until the topping is golden brown and the kitchen smells of beautifully baked apples! Enjoy.

Since this is very healthy, it would make a great breakfast too.

Fried Pickles!

 
The other day, we went out with friends to a restaurant that had fried pickles listed as an appetizer. Now, I love pickles and I, unfortunately, have an affinity for fried things as well. But together, I wasn't really sure about that. But since I've had fried green beans before and loved them, we gave it a shot.

They were rather awesome! The pickle was still crunchy as it should be but now it was covered with a light breading and accompanied by a creamy and slightly tangy sauce. When I got home, I decided to try it and see if I could make them without the need of a deep fryer, which I don't have due to the teeny-ness of my kitchen. (and because fried things are not high on the good-for-you chart)

Success! They were perfect, almost exactly the same as the ones in the restaurant and delicious!! So for all of you who love pickles, this is how you make them even better:

Fried Pickles

1 jar dill pickle spears
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup flour
1 beaten egg
panko breadcrumbs

Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Meanwhile, put flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs in three different shallow plates.

Remove pickle spears from pickle juice and pat dry with paper towels. Coat one pickle in flour, shake to remove excess. Coat in egg and then in breadcrumbs.

Place gently in frying pan and fry about two minutes on each side, or until each side is golden brown.  Repeat with remaining pickles. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

To make the dipping sauce:

1/2 cup Greek yogurt or sour cream

1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp fresh dill
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil


Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Stir thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Enjoy.