Red Beans and Whipped Cream

A year or so ago I was watching an episode of Rachael Ray (that’s what I did when I was unemployed) and she made chicken tenders by breading them in crushed pretzels. Zach and I thought this looked awesome, so we tried it, and they tasted great. The problem with them is that they dirty a LOT of dishes.

The other day I decided to make honey sesame chicken, and the recipe that I based mine around used a different method to the breading.

Last night I tried to incorporate that new (actually very old) method into regular chicken tenders.

All three taste great. The pretzel chicken is interesting, but I’m honestly not sure it’s worth the extra mess, unless you’re going to be making a lot of them. They are fun because you can buy so many different flavors of pretzels now, that you can really vary the taste of the chicken tender.

On all of these you want to start with good quality chicken. It’s the main part of this recipe, don’t buy stuff that looks nasty.

We’ll start with the Pretzel Chicken recipe and move on from there.

Pretzel Chicken

Raw chicken tenders
Flour
Milk
Egg
Pretzel crumbs (food process works great for this)
Spices (garlic, onion powder, Bojangles seasoning, salt, pepper, anything that sounds good to you!)
Olive oil for cooking

Rinse the chicken tenders and pat dry. Pour the flour into a bowl, the milk and egg in a bowl, and the pretzel crumbs in a third bowl. Dip the chicken tenders into the flour, then the milk/egg, then the pretzels. You can repeat this if you want a thicker crunchier coating.

Pour olive oil into a large skillet until it is deep enough to come more than halfway up the sides of the chicken tenders. Heat on medium high. Drop a little piece of the breading into the oil to see if it’s hot enough, it should immediately start sizzling like crazy.

Lay a single layer of chicken tenders in the skillet, being careful not to crowd the pan. Let cook for aproximately 5 minutes, you want it to be nice and golden brown. Flip the tenders and cook until the other side is golden brown. You want a meat thermometer to read at least 165. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, then cut a tender open and see if there is any pink left.

Place the chicken tenders on a towel-lined plate to drain. Repeat with remaining chicken.

If you feel like the outside is cooking too quickly and the inside is not done yet, you can finish these off in the oven.

Chicken Tenders recipe 2

Raw chicken tenders
Wochestershire sauce
Garlic powder
Paprika
Cornstarch
Flour
Olive oil for cooking

Place chicken tenders in a bowl with enough wocestershire sauce to cover the bottom. Sprinkle with a heafty dash of garlic powder and paprika (I also used a heafty dose of bojangles seasoning, but I’m assuming most people don’t have any of that). Let them marinate for at least 10 minutes, an hour or two is better.

Give them a sprinkle with a tablespoon or two of cornstarch (don’t drain them or take them out of the wocestershire sauce!). Then start adding flour by the handfull (or scoop full), making sure to thouroughly coat the chicken and absorb the wocestershire. If you want a thicker breading, then drizzle some melted margarine or some chicken stock on top, and then coat with more flour. Don’t worry about putting too much flour, any excess just won’t stick.

Follow the directions from the pretzel chicken for cooking.

Honey Sesame Chicken

Raw chicken tenders cut into chunks that are aproximately 1 inch square
Soy sauce
Garlic powder
Paprika
Cornstarch
Flour
Olive oil for cooking
Sesame Seeds
Altered polynesian sauce

Follow the directions from the chicken tenders recipe directly above, but substitute soy sauce for the wocestershire.

Alter the polynesian sauce recipe by using soy sauce instead of wochestershire. If you have any bell peppers on hand, saute a handfull of minced bell pepper, and add it to the sauce. If it is too runny, sprinkle some corn starch in it and stir well.

After they are cooked, drizzle them with polynesian sauce to coat. Then sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Serve over rice with whatever veggies sound good. Maybe brocolli (if you like that evil flower), bell pepper slices, and water chesnuts.

I just found this recipe in my Myspace blog from a year ago and thought I should add it, because it was really good.

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I have a great vegetarian cookbook which I’ve only made one recipe from, though I’ve made that particular recipe several times. But I’ve been in a food rut recently, and needed something new to try, so I pulled out my cookbook and flipped through the 20 or so pages I’d bookmarked the day I bought the book. There was a recipe for spring vegetables in cute little puff pastry baskets with a tomato sauce, and suddenly it hit me, chicken pot pie in little puff pastry baskets! Like most dinner recipes that I make, I didn’t bother to go directly by a recipe or really measure everything, so the amounts are estimated.

Poultry Puff Pastry Pot Pie

One pack of puff pastry, thawed
1 cup (maybe a little more) frozen peas, carrots, corn, and greenbeans
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, divided
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup diced onion
2 red potatoes, diced
2 teaspoons minced garlic
8 ounces diced chicken
1 can chicken stock
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup milk
1 egg

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Roll the puff pastry out very thin, sprinkle 1 tablespoon Parmesan, fold over, and roll out again. Cut into four rectangles. Using a sharp knife cut a smaller rectangle into each, cutting halfway through. Very lightly score a criss-cross pattern across the inner box. Brush with egg. Put on a lightly greased cookie sheet (or silpat, if you have one) and cook for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. They should look something like this:

While the puff pastry is cooking, heat the olive oil in a skillet and add the onions and garlic. Cook until soft, and add 1 tablespoon of butter or margarine and let melt, then add 2 tablespoons of flour and rest of Parmesan and stir. Add the chicken broth, stirring to dissolve any lumps. Bring to a simmer and add chicken and potatoes. Let simmer until chicken is cooked through and potatoes are tender. Add the frozen vegetables and milk and heat through, making sure green beans are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. It should look something like this:

Carefully remove the tops to the puff pastry boxes:

Fill the boxes with the chicken pot pie filling:

This was really good, and I bet you vegetarians could leave out the chicken and add some extra potato. Enjoy!

The other day I came across a recipe for homemade poptarts. It gave the suggestion of making them savory with pepperoni and cheese. Not 20 seconds later, Charlotte sent me the same recipe, so I figured it was meant to be.

It was *not* meant to be.

It was a mess. I think maybe it was too warm in my kitchen, because it was just not working right for me at all. After two ruined batches of dough, I gave up. But I had already made the pizza sauce, and I had bought pizza ingredients.

Luckily I had also bought egg roll wrappers for another purpose, and decided to use some of them to make home made pizza rolls or hot pockets or whatever you would like to compare them to.

I’m not going to put quantities on this, because you can make as many or as few as you want. I think I might try making a bunch tonight and freezing them as a healthier, less proccessed version of hot pockets.

You can generally find egg roll wrappers in the produce section of the store near the packaged greens, soy products, and healthy drinks. I don’t know why.

Obviously these ingredients are just suggestions. Use your favorite pizza toppings!

Pizza Rolls

Egg roll Wrappers (the big square ones)
Pepperoni
Ricotta
Sliced black olives
Fresh spinach
Grated mozzerella or some other italian mix of cheeses
Fresh parmesean
Pizza sauce for dipping

Lay out an egg roll wrapper and spread a small amount of ricotta diagonally across. Add a sprinkle of cheese, a few pepperonies, some torn up spinach leaves, a few black olive slices, and a bit of parmesean. Just be sure not to overfill your wrappers.

Fold the bottom corner up over the filling, then fold the side corners in on top, then wet the top flap by running a wet finger across it, and fold it down. The egg roll wrapper package probably has illustrated instructions for all of this.

Repeat until you have the quantity you want.

Brush lightly with melted butter, or just spray with cooking spray. Cook at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or so, or until they are golden brown.

Dip in or top with pizza sauce and enjoy!