A Little Dash of This

The work week...it's half OVER!!  It was a pretty good day.  The sunrise this morning was spectacular.  It was very cloudy all day which made it humid, but it started raining after lunch and it hasn't really stopped since then (over 5 hours at this point).  I love this kind of weather.  I really wanted to leave work, go home, hide out all by myself and read a book or do absolutely nothing and veg on the couch.  I didn't get to do that, but the hubs did make a great dinner of grilled steak, garlic shells and beans for me when I got home.  I guess that about makes up for not being able to hide away this afternoon.  Take a gander at what I saw on my way in to work this morning.  This was taken with my phone camera.

Now on to the good stuff.

When it comes to recipes, I usually follow them to. the. letter.  I am not one of those people who can just throw a little bit of this, a dash of that, together to make a dish.  Nope.  I have to have direction.  Complete direction.  But, I went a little out of my comfort zone with this recipe.  I combined a recipe for Crunchy Ranch Fingers out of my Biggest Book of 30-Minute Meals and Fried Chicken Strips from Mrs Bettie Rocker to get a kid-friendly, somewhat healthy chicken chunk meal.

Oven Chicken Chunks
1 lb (or a little less) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup Italian bread crumbs
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1 egg
1 cup milk

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Cut chicken in to bite-size pieces.

In a shallow bowl, combine the bread crumbs, garlic salt, basil, paprika and pepper.  Set aside.  In another shallow bowl, beat egg and combine with milk.  Dip chicken in to egg mixture, then bread crumb mixture.

Place in greased 9x13 baking pan.  Place in 425* oven for 20 minutes, turning once.

NOTES:  The recipe from MBR called for crushed saltines and then frying in oil.  I didn't have enough of either of those so I improvised.  The only thing I used from the 30-minute recipe, really, was the oven temperature and cooking time.

Just outta the oven.  I don't know that you really have to grease the bottom of the baking dish, but I did just in case. 

Served with peas, I added a little BBQ sauce for dipping - Jack Daniel's Spicy Original.  I would've used Chris & Pitt's BBQ sauce, but I can't find it in New Mexico.  Maybe I'll add it to my Christmas list.  LOL

Kid friendly!  Nate ate the 3 chunks I gave him and even asked for (and ate) more! Happy Mommy!

Mason?  Eh...he'll eat pretty much anything.  LOL

There ya go!  Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday evening.  I'm off to get the kiddo to bed so the hubs and I can cuddle on the couch, watch last night's Parenthood and then tonight's Tosh.0.  Oh...I slept better last night, but I *really* wanted to be waking up to Saturday - not Wednesday.