Recipe: Double-Dipped Chicken Fingers + Spinach Salad with Orange Goat Cheese Dressing

Yum. This was a delicious meal, and I can definitively say that this recipe is extremely flexible. Because for a  wide variety of reasons, I basically didn't follow the recipe at all. Oops. Oh well. It was still delicious. Yum.

First step is to make the dressing. The original recipe called for blue cheese and  lemon juice in the dressing, but that was obviously not going to happen. Blue cheese? Gross. So what did I substitute? Goat cheese, obviously. What else would I do? And I had every intention of using lemon juice. I really did. Except I didn't check the fridge before I went to the store. We only had like a tablespoon of lemon juice left in the bottle. And the only lemons in the fridge were growing some kind of funky fuzzy stuff. Ew. So instead, I used oranges. Totally the same thing, right? Oh, and last change to the dressing? I opted out of the chopped celery and threw in some dried cilantro. 

So to recap the ingredients: sour cream + goat cheese + hot sauce + freshly squeezed orange juice + orange zest + cilantro + salt and pepper. Whisk them all together, and you've got some fairly serious magic.

Toss about half of the dressing together with some spinach, finely chopped red onion, and mushrooms (optional). Set aside the rest of the dressing to be used as dip for the chicken fingers.

Meanwhile, heat up some oil in a deep pot and get your flour and buttermilk ready. Coat the chicken fillets once in flour and buttermilk, then twice, and then one last time in the flour before firing them into the oil. 

Cook to your preferred level of crispiness, remembering to turn them over about halfway through.

Once they're all crisped up, put them a plate lined with paper towel and sprinkle with salt. Throw the next batch in the oil, and keep going until they're all cooked.

Serve them beside the spinach salad with extra dressing for dipping sauce, or chop them up and sprinkle on top of the salad. Your choice. I added chopped peaches to my salad for garnish and a bit of a flavour pop (berries would work nice too -- blueberries in particular, I think) as well.

Enjoy :)

The original recipe comes from Rachel Ray's Express Lane Meals.

Double-Dipped Buttermilk Chicken Fingers on Spinach Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

(aka possibly the longest recipe name of all time)

Ingredients:

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

A few dashes of hot sauce

1 cup blue cheese crumbles

1/2 cup sour scream

1 celery rib, finely chopped

Salt and black pepper

Vegetable oil, for frying

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups buttermilk

1 teaspoon paprika, 1/3 palmful

1 1/2 to 2 pounds chicken tenders

1 pound spinach

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced

10 button mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced

Directions:

1. In a small mixing bowl, combine the lemon juice, hot sauce, crumbled blue cheese, sour cream, celery, salt and pepper. Mix the dressing well and reserve.

2. Preheat 1 1/2 inches of vegetable oil in a large deep skillet. While the oil is heating, set up a breading assembly line near the stove. Put the flour in a large, wide bowl; pour the buttermilk into a second large, wide bowl; then stir in the lemon zest and paprika. Season the chicken tenders with salt and pepper. Working in 2 or 3 batches, dust the chicken tenders in the flour, shake off the excess, then coat in the buttermilk. Transfer them back to the flour and coat them thoroughly, then back to the buttermilk, and then back into the flour for one last coating.

3. To test the oil temperature, add a 1-inch cube of bread to the hot oil. If it turns deep golden brown by a count of 40, the oil is ready. If the bread cube browns too quickly, turn down the heat and wait a few minutes for it to cool down. Carefully place the first batch of coated tenders in the hot oil. Fry the tenders in small batches for 6 to 7 minutes, turning when the first side has become golden brown. Once cooked, remove from the oil to a paper-towel-lined plate and immediately sprinkle them with a little salt. Repeat until all the tenders are fried.

4. After the last batch of tenders goes into the oil, combine the spinach, red onion, and sliced mushrooms in a large salad bowl. Pour half of the dressing over the salad and toss it to coat. Top the salad with the fried chicken tenders, whole or chopped, your choice, and serve the remaining dressing on the side for dipping. 

Convocation!

Hello everyone!

This past week has been very busy for me -- it was my birthday on Tuesday, and my convocation from university on Wednesday, and basically, I got very, very spoiled.

I'll return to food related posts shortly, but here are some of my favourite pictures from convocation!

Moi and the parentals and the stupid hat.

Gramma and I :)

Me and a very expensive piece of paper!

Dad showing what he thinks of the Chancellor's speech -- seriously, it was pretty bad. Who talks about puffins and 'dead reckoning' in a graduation speech??

Anyways, that's that. I may post another picture or two that shows my dress better. I really am very fond of that dress, although I had do some emergency work with a safety pin before the ceremony and I was almost late. *gasp* Oh well, it all turned out well in the end.

My education degree is now hanging in its rightful place below my history degree in their matching gazillion dollar frames from the bookstore. I'm the proud  owner of yet another UVic alumni business card holder (woot!). And I am now completely and officially done with university ... unless I decide to go back and get my master's degree. But that won't happen for awhile ... I think.

Testing, Testing!

Well folks, I finally took the plunge and bought a smartphone! And so far, I love it! Still getting used to it of course, but everything is going much smoother now that I turned the auto correct language to English instead of French... for awhile there I thought I was going to go crazy. I mean really, what kind of phone doesn't recognize the word "that"? (it kept changing it to "Guay". Good times.)

Anyways this is really just a test of both my typing skills and the blogger app, so on that note I'm going to sign off. Besides, I have laundry to do and car insurance to buy. What more could a girl want for a Saturday morning?

Recipe: Chocolate (Chip) Lava Cookies

Yum. Here, as promised, is the scrumptious recipe with which I broke in my new KitchenAid! It was a fitting recipe for many reasons, but mostly for my two favourite standbys: it was easy and it was delicious.

Now, you may be wondering why I've entitled this recipe "Chocolate (Chip) Lava Cookies." I mean, what's up with those parentheses? Well, believe it or not, I am *ahem* sometimes not that careful when I read recipes. And I missed the part where it says only melt a portion of the chocolate chips that the recipe calls for. I melted the whole bag, which also happened to be the last bag of chocolate chips in the house. *sigh*. So my Chocolate Chip Lava Cookies were destined to be chipless.

Ah well. The first step in this as in so many recipes is to cream together the butter and sugars (brown and white) until nice and fluffy. Enter my new mixer. Handled it's first task like a dream. See?

Look at that mixing action! Anyways, then you add in your egg and your vanilla and beat thoroughly. Then it's time to add your dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda -- not powder, which I almost added by mistake because I wasn't paying attention!!) and mix until just combined. The mixture will start to form a kind of crumbly dough, like so:

Now comes the fun part! Split the batter/dough in half and set one half aside. Pat about a heaping tablespoon of the dough into the bottom of each greased cup in your muffin pan until you've used up half the batter. Then give each cookie a good dose of melted chocolate. Finally, use the rest of the dough to cover over each cookie.

When you're done covering over the chocolate, fire the pan in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. When the cookies are golden brown, remove from oven and run a knife around the edges of each to help ease the removal.

Serve warm topped with ice cream and any left over melted chocolate. Or just devour them right away. Both are good options.

Here's the full recipe, found originally here:

Chocolate Chip Lava Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 (11.5 oz) bag milk chocolate chips, divided

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a standard size muffin tin. Place 1/2 cup chocolate chips in a Ziploc bag and seal shut. Lay the Ziploc bag flat in the microwave, spreading out the chocolate chips in a single layer. Microwave for 30 seconds. Remove bag and flip, microwaving for an additional 10-15 seconds until all the chips are softened. Set aside to cool.

2. With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Add to the wet ingredients and beat on low speed until just combined. Add the remaining chocolate chips (1 cup) and stir to combine.

3. Using half the cookie dough, scoop 1.5-2 tbsp of dough, flatten it out a bit, and place in the bottom of the muffin tin. Repeat for a total of 10 cookies. Cut a small tip in the corner of the Ziploc bag and gently squeeze a layer of chocolate over the cookie. Scoop and flatten the remaining dough and place on top of the chocolate layer. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are just browned. As soon as they come out of the oven, run a knife around the edges to make for easy removing later.

My New KitchenAid: An Ode

Okay, I'm not actually going to write an ode about my new KitchenAid mixer. I would like to, but frankly I'm not that good with rhyme and meter.

Suffice it to say, my new KitchenAid arrived on Friday!!! I was/am/still am so excited. It's a gift from my lovely and very generous Gramma in honor of my convocation (which, sidetrack, is coming up in 2 weeks -- crazy!). Yay, yay, yay!! It's red and gorgeous and works like a dream! Sadly it's going to be staying in storage for a little bit, as we don't quite have enough counter space in the house for two KitchenAids to live there. Nevertheless, I couldn't put it away without trying it at least once! The recipe will come in the next post, but first, look at my new toy!

Recipe: Hoop Soup Snoop Group Potato Soup

Yes, that is the real name for this recipe. And yes, it does come from my Dr. Seuss cookbook. Are any of you really surprised that I have a Dr. Seuss cookbook? I didn't think so. Bonus points to anyone who can correctly identify which Dr. Seuss book this recipe come from though!

I've been on a bit of a Dr. Seuss roll lately. I actually wrote my own Dr.Seuss-ish story at work the other day in honor of Bike to Work Week. And when I discovered that one of my coworkers had never read a Dr. Seuss story, I brought some to work for him to read. Naturally, he loves them. :P

Yesterday when I was trying to come up for something to make for dinner, I knew I had to make something special. Why? Because I GOT NEW POTS!!! My parents gave me this absolutely amazing set of pots and pans for my grad gift, and they arrived this week! Due to a whole bunch of different factors, last night was the firs time I had a chance to cook with them, so I wanted to make a dish truly worthy of them. And where else could I turn but to my handy dandy Dr. Seuss Cookbook?

Anyways, the first test of my new cookware turned out to be a smashing success! Not only are my pots beautiful, but they heat up super fast and super evenly. Oh, and the soup was delicious. That too. :P

Really nothing could be simpler than this recipe, or more comforting on a cold it's-supposed-to-be-summer-but-it's-raining sort of day.

But before we get to the recipe, first you have to admire my pots! Okay, I know that's just a pot lid, but still, look how shiny!!

Anyways, your first step is to chop up some potatoes and an onion and throw them in a pot with some water. Like so:

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until the potatoes are nice and soft and mashable (about 20 minutes).

Next, drain the potatoes and mash them with a potato masher, like so:

If you left the skins on your potatoes like I did (even though the recipe says to peel them), then your mashed potatoes will probably end up slightly chunkier. But that's okay. A few lumps never hurt anybody.

Slowly add the milk to the potatoes, stirring as you do so. Put the pot back on medium heat and keep stirring until it's all blended. For a smoother, thicker soup, scoop out some of the bigger chunks of potatoes and quickly blend them your Magic Bullet (or regular blender. That will work too), then pour the puree back into the pot.

Now comes the seasoning part. The recipe honestly doesn't call for much in the way of seasonings, but I find potato soup tends towards the bland side of things, so I like to spice things up. I use lots of fresh ground black pepper, a very healthy dose of seasoning salt (yum!), and some chili pepper flakes, just for good measure. Don't be afraid to be very liberal with the seasonings. After all, who wants a tasteless soup?

Once you've reached your preferred level of flavour and the soup is hot all the way through, ladle it into some bowls and top with croutons, cheese, bacon and green onions. Mmmmmmmm.

Here's the full recipe!

Ingredients:
1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into several pieces
1/4 chopped onion
6 cups water
2 tsp salt
2 cups whole milk
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
4 slices crisply cooked bacon, crumbled
1 cup croutons
1/2 cup minced green onion

Directions:
1. In a large saucepan, combine the potatoes, onion, and water and 1 tsp of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

2. Drain the potatoes and return them to the hot saucepan. Mash them with a potato masher.

3. Stir the milk into the mashed potatoes and return to medium heat, stirring until the soup is well blended and hot, about 5 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

4. Put the cheese, bacon, croutons, and green onion in separate small bowls to accompany the soup.

Makes 4 servings.