Tonight I am making one of my all-time favorites for a few years now. I can’t remember where I saw this at. I have made this one since I was in college. I mean who doesn’t like fried chicken? You would be crazy if you didn’t (seriously!) but it is not the healthiest dinner idea either. In honor of my new 2013 health kick I decided it is time people in the Pinterest world become aware of this delicious main dish! There have been a few Pinterest recipes that say I could use honey mustard instead of egg but I am not sure if that is a good idea. However a bit of tangy flavor might be good so I am going to try it. I will let you know how it turns out but usually I use 2 eggs beaten without honey mustard. I got my original recipe off the French’s website. After a few runs at it I always added more flour for more breading and sometimes I season my egg mixture up a bit. So this one may vary since I am deciding to play with it.
As many of you know my man is an amazing cook. He has been ever since the days I laid eyes on him in his backwards Applebee’s trucker hat 😉 He has taught me a lot about cooking even though I would like to think I wasn’t a terrible cook before we started dating. I will admit that I never cooked with fresh vegetables or garlic before we got together. I would never cook with dried onions unless it was an emergency now! I used to go through garlic powder like crazy and now we always have fresh garlic on hand. I will say I was shocked the night he had me over for dinner one night and made me instant mashed potatoes. I was like people actually make those?! I would NEVER!!! I was disgusted…and he later learned why when I made him my uncle Randy’s famous mashed potatoes….See I can actually teach him a thing or two 😉
Anyways now I am way off track…so back to Alex teaching me things about cooking. I am one of those people who cannot be patient with thawing meat. Actually I always attempt to have an idea of what needs to be thawed out if we are cooking that night. Lets be real though people…life gets in the way and sometimes we forget or we get home and are ready to cook something but we don’t have a few hours to let meat thaw out. (I used to run to the store and buy meat that was not frozen) Normally I would fill the sink up with hot water and wait for it to thaw out.
Fake-out Fried Chicken
4 chicken breasts
1 egg
1 bag fried onions
3 tbsp all purpose flour
2 minced fresh garlic cloves
honey mustard
salt, pepper
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Crush up the fried onions. Mix the flour in the crushed fried onions thoroughly. I usually add some salt and pepper to the mixture just to give it some extra flavor. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and a generous amount of honey mustard with the minced fresh garlic and some more salt and pepper. Dip the chicken breasts in the egg mixture followed by the crushed onion mixture. Place in a glass dish or pan and put in for 20 minutes. I think the key to this is to pull it out after 15 minutes and turn the chicken over to make sure both sides get crunchy. Then I put it back in for 5-7 minutes depending on how thick your chicken is.
While at Hyvee I grabbed a few sweet potatoes because after Alex introduced me to sweet potato fries I am all of a sudden OBSESSED with anything made of sweet potatoes! I love them!! I have been debating making sweet mashed potatoes with greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Then while browsing around on Pinterest (As I do most of the time!)…I found a really yummy recipe for these sweet baked potatoes with greek yogurt mash from a blog called Sense and Serendipity . I tweaked it to my own liking because I am a firm believer in the power of olive oil! I must say it was delish!
Sweet Baked Potatoes with Greek Yogurt
2 sweet potatoes
olive oil
2 minced garlic cloves
salt and pepper
1 tub plain greek yogurt
honey
nuts of some sort…walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, whatever you have in the house to add a crunch
I tend to see ideas on Pinterest and then I think I need to put my little tweak on it so hopefully it works! I make sweet potato fries and steak fries all the time but they are frozen and I just follow the bag instructions. So I looked at a few recipes and decided to try baking them in foil. I cut them in half long ways and drizzled olive oil all over. Then I seasoned them with salt and pepper and I threw some minced garlic. (Hopefully that doesn’t bite me but it sounded good!) These took longer than I was expecting but I think it was because I was STARVING when I started cooking in the first place. I cooked them at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes. The best part about these sweet baked potatoes are how Weight Watcher “friendly” they are! They are 4 points for one sweet potato 5 inches in length! I could only do half and I was full so that was even better!
