She spent a significant amount of time dancing to the chicken that she got from Betty and Great Grandpa! Here are a few shots of her getting down!
And lately dad has been making a milkshake to share with Maddie. Cute. But also a very convenient way for him to eat dessert every night.
And now for the chicken nuggets. I decided to make a big batch of chicken nuggets and chicken fingers so that I can freeze a bunch of portions and have them available for M to eat. That way it's nice and healthy and also convenient to heat up for her!
First, making the breadcrumbs. After a lot of discussion and research, I've decided I want to avoid GMO food when I can. So, breads. Eventually, I'd like to make some of my own bread, but we really just don't have the available time right now. So, I found that Great Harvest Bread Company produces non-GMO breads. The nugget recipe I have calls for 1 cup of breadcrumbs, so I took 6 slices of the Honey Wheat I bought, left them out overnight to get stale. Then I baked them at 200 degrees for about 2 hours. Then I throw them in a ziplock bag and grind the heck out of them with a rolling pin. Ryan actually had to grind them up because this bread ended up being so hard I could only manage to break them into quarter size pieces.
Now, for the nuggets and fingers!!! I used this recipe from 100 Day of Real Food. I altered the spice content a bit because I felt like it wasn't enough. I basically did most of it to taste, so it's up to you if you'd like to put more in or not. I also used 1-1/2 lbs of chicken and 1-1/2 cups of breadcrumbs. This yielded about 40 nuggets and 7 fingers.
The chicken getting breaded and awaiting cooking!
To cook, I used olive oil (coconut would be good too). Make sure you put enough in the pan to coat the bottom and let it get nice and hot. If it's not hot enough it will just soak into the breading and make the nuggets greasy instead of crispy. I also tend to cook my chicken a little higher than the recipe recommends (medium instead of medium-low). Tip: Use a spatula to flip them. If you you tongs you risk knocking the breading off the sides that haven't cooked yet. I'm also anal retentive about food safety, so I always use a thermometer to check that my chicken has reached 165 degrees...especially if it's something I'm feeding to Maddie.
After cooking be sure to put them on a plate lined with paper towel. I also push paper towel down into the top of the pieces to get more oil off the top. Here are some of the finished nuggets and fingers!
I've never frozen homemade nuggets/finger before, so I'm not really sure how they're going to survive the thawing and heating process. I do know that they were pretty darn good when the were hot out of the pan....yes, I cheated and ate some.
I'll be sure to let you know if they are horrible after they're re-heated! But, I thought I'd share a pretty quick and natural food that lends itself to storing in the freezer for your little ones (or even yourself).
Update 6/8/13: The 2 pounds of chicken I made here are officially gone. I've got to make another batch today. As for the freezing, M didn't seem to mind them at all when they were reheated. Tho, my personal opinion is that the nuggets dried out, but the fingers stayed pretty darn good. For this batch I'm going to make all chicken fingers and freeze them in packs of 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment