Healthier Boneless Chicken Wings

Sorry for the lack of recipes, my sister finally had her baby, and we had to go visit, and then of course we got a little lazy. She is so adorable, and easy going (from what we witnessed). So excited to be an aunt! She is going to be a spoiled little girl!

Aside from the major life event, we have started cooking again. I didn't post my beef soup recipe that I made with the leftover juices from our BBQ ribs, but I don't really have a recipe, because I just went all out and kept adding things without keeping track of what really went in. I just went with what I thought tasted right. And lots of veggies and cubed steak! With one missing recipe, here is a good one to make up for it. We actually found inspiration from another blog: www.foodiewithfamily.com/2013/09/25/oven-fried-homemade-chicken-nuggets-and-boneless-buffalo-wings/

So a thank you goes out to this blogger for inspiration, we only changed her recipe a little to fit what we could find at the store, and what was around the house. Our sauce on the other hand, we like to play around with a bit.

Ingredients:

2 large chicken breasts
1 Bottle Frank's Red Hot Sauce
2-4 cups panko bread crumbs
2 cups Greek yogurt
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (divided)
2 teaspoons onion powder (divided)
2 teaspoons garlic powder (divided) + pinch for the sauce
2 teaspoons kosher salt + pinch for the sauce
2 teaspoons cumin (divided)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper (divided) + extra for sauce
1 teaspoon lime juice
3 teaspoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup spicy bloody mary mix (weird I know)
1 large jalapeno

Here's how to put it together:

Chicken Prep:

Add the yogurt, and 1 teaspoon of cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder, kosher salt, and cumin to a gallon freezer bag. Also add half of the black pepper. Close the bag and mix it together with your hands until it looks evenly mixed. Be careful not to eat any when you open it, it smells like it has the makings for a pretty delicious chip dip!

Cube your chicken equally so they cook evenly. Put your chicken cubes into the bag, seal, and mash them all together to get them all evenly covered. Put them in the fridge to sit for 30 minutes. While you are waiting, prep your sauce and panko breading.

Breading:

In a pie pan, or shallow bowl, add your bread crumbs, and the remainder of your seasonings. Mix evenly with your favorite utensil. (I used my hands!)

Pre-heat your oven to 350. When 30 minutes are up, press your nuggets into the bread crumbs to cover and place on a nonstick baking sheet. Leave at least 1/2 inch between each piece for even cooking. Bake until golden brown. Well, as "golden" as panko can get. Ours were more of a "whitish gold." Ours took 20 minutes.

Sauce:

In a food processor, pour the whole bottle of Frank's Red Hot, your maple syrup, agave nectar, lime juice, spicy bloody mary mix, melted butter, and jalapeno. Blend until all chunks are gone. Add remaining seasonings to taste.

Spin your finished nuggets in your sauce, add some bleu cheese dipping sauce, and enjoy! If you have celery, it doesn't hurt to have as a side dish to help with some of that spiciness. If you have tried any of our previous recipes, you know they will be spicy!

Spicy BBQ Ribs Continued

What else did we do with our leftovers? Probably the most obvious option, BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches! We took the remainder of our shredded pork, tossed it in our favorite BBQ sauce (Stubb's Spicy BBQ) and put it on croissants. But we couldn't just make them that simple. We made homemade onion rings in our fryer with a beer batter mix, which I am unsure of what type it was, but any will do. We then layered the onion rings on top, the covered those with a slice of cheddar cheese. Popped them in the oven at 350 for around 20 minutes, and voila!

Since we had the fryer heated, and we are obsessed with our new mandolin which we got for Christmas, we had to make tiny french fries with our baby reds. Not the healthiest of meals, but a satisfying option for leftovers.







Here is the final product:

Spicy Green Curry

You may notice this trend quickly, so I will go ahead and point it out, we love spicy food. A month or so ago we had heard that the Sriracha plant had closed temporarily (hopefully) but we weren't too worried about stocking up and we still had half a bottle at home. Well, last week at work, Shawn heard a rumor that bottles of Sriracha were selling on EBay for some high prices, and that all of the stores were running out. So what did we do? Panicked. Instead of looking into the rumors, we headed to one of the Asian markets, because who would look there? Of course the grocery stores would run out first! And when the first one we checked didn't have any, that made us a little more nervous. Once we made it to the Asian market, we decided to explore a little and see if there was anything else we could use. Well we found the inspiration for our latest creation...green curry paste! Here's how we did it:

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Firm Tofu
2-3 Tbs Coconut Oil
1-2 Tbs Soybean Oil Mixed with Sesame Oil
1/4-1/2 cup Green Curry Paste
1 tsp Chopped Basil
1-2 tsp Red Chili Flakes
1 cup Sliced Mushrooms
2 stalks Sliced Celery
1.5 Sweet Onions
2 cups Peas
3-4 Cups Spinach or Kale

Fried Tofu:

In a wok, melt enough coconut oil to cover the bottom. I probably used 2-3 tablespoons. Heat the oil, then add your pieces of tofu however you prefer to cut them. I did triangles, even though most of them fell apart into chunks when I mixed them into the curry sauce. Next time I will use firm tofu instead of sauce. Anyways, fry the pieces until they are golden brown on each side and set aside on a paper towel to absorb the oil.

Curry Sauce and Vegetables:

1. Pour out remaining coconut oil. Dispose of it however you prefer, you won't be using it again. It does solidify at room temperature, so you may not want to pour it down the drain.
2. Pour 1-2 tablespoons sesame mixed with soybean oil. The recipe on the side of the curry paste recommended soybean oil, but all we could find was the mix, and it turned out wonderfully. 
3. To the oil, mix 1/4-1/2 cut green curry paste depending on how powerful you want it to be. We probably used closer to 1/4 cup, and next time I will probably go closer to 1/2 cup.
4. Heat and mix them together to make more of a sauce so the paste is no longer chunky.
5. Add half cup of coconut milk and continue cooking on low.
6. Chop onions, mushrooms, and celery and add them to the sauce with peas and spinach or kale (we used a mix).
7. Mix in with the sauce and add the remainder of the coconut milk, with a quarter can of water. Add 1 teaspoonful chopped basil, 1-2 teaspoonfuls red chili flakes (to your heat preferences), and some salt and pepper to taste.
8. Cover and let simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes or until all vegetables are soft and fully cooked.
9. Add in the tofu, mix, and let sit uncovered for 5-10 minutes to rewarm tofu and cook off some excess liquid.
10. Serve over rice or noodles and enjoy!

Spicy BBQ Ribs

This weekend I finally had a Saturday off work, so we decided our dinner could have a more time consuming prep. What did we decide on? RIBS. How did we decide on that? We passed some awesome looking ribs at Costco and had to buy them. So we dug through for the smallest pack we could find, because we were only cooking for the two of us. Smallest size at Costco...just short of 5 lbs. That's a lot of pork. After 6.5 hours of preparation, they were fantastic. So tender, they fell right of the bone and melted in your mouth. Here's how we made them:

In the crock pot:

Rack of Pork Ribs

2-3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

1 Tablespoon San-J Brand Sweet and Tangy Sauce

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Pepper

1 full chopped sweet onion

Cover with lid, and cook for 6 hours on high setting. Do NOT open the lid. They will smell delicious, and it will be tempting, but DON'T do it! You will be glad you didn't when they are finished.

In the oven:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Remove ribs from crock pot and place on baking sheet, or in any pan you think they will fit nicely in depending on how big your ribs are. The pan choice isn't really important, we just had a baking sheet sitting cleaned in the drying rack, so we went with that. Smother your ribs in your favorite BBQ sauce (our favorite being Stubb's Spicy BBQ Sauce). Bake for 20 minutes. Then, enjoy! 

What did we do with the delicious au jus left over in the crock pot? Saved it for soup stock. If it turns out, we will post our recipe. It I don't forget of course. I don't seem to be the most reliable blogger so far, but I'm working on it.

And the leftover pork? Of course there were leftovers, the two of us couldn't take down 5 lbs of ribs in one sitting! The next morning after yoga, we warmed up the pork, made some scrambled eggs with onions and jalapenos, and made pork breakfast tacos. Very easy and satisfying breakfast. Sorry, we were too hungry to think of taking pictures of these bad boys. Also, we still have enough leftovers for sandwiches, or something undetermined.

1. Saute your onions and jalapenos with some salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, cayenne pepper and olive oil.
2. Add your eggs and scramble together.
3. While doing 1 and 2, warm your leftover pork.
4. Warm your tortillas if you prefer them warm. (We definitely do!)
5. Plate your tacos with eggs and pork.
6. Add shredded cheese, salsa and sour cream (we prefer Greek yogurt to sour cream, but that one is up to you).