Food Storage To The Rescue!

A few weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, I was watching an episode of Good Eats on my DVR with my family (random I know!). It’s this show where the host Alton Brown dissects the science behind making foods like pizza, fried chicken, cookies and all sorts of other GOOD things. It kind of reminds me of a science show for kids, but the tricks and science behind it all is awesome. On this particular episode, he was sharing how to master fried chicken…. You know the kind where the crust around it is super good – JUST like the crust on Olive Garden Chicken Parmesan – A delicious piece of friend chicken breast covered in marinara sauce, cheese, and placed on top of noodles (are you drooling yet?). I looked at my husband and said – well now I know what’s for dinner.

I was missing HALF the ingredients to make the chicken turn out good…like buttermilk and eggs. NOOOOOOOO! I exclaimed. Well you’ll probably guess what I’ll say next… I used some of my everyday food storage items to replace what I was missing.

SO THIS IS THE PART – where I tell you how I changed just about everything in a recipe in order to use food storage and to make a recipe healthier.

He said to soak the chicken in buttermilk – so I made buttermilk from powdered milk and lemon juice.
He also said to dip the chicken in eggs before dipping it in the flour mixture – so I used powdered eggs and it worked!
He said to use white flour but I also ground up wheat and just a few corn kernels for the flour mixture.
He also said, if you’re looking to add any spices, put it in the egg mixture instead of the flour mixture, cause some spices tend to burn, and if it’s on the egg mixture, then covered in the flour mixture it will be protected!
He said to deep fry it, but I lightly coated my pan with olive oil and fried it that way.

SIDE NOTE: I also replaced regular noodles with spaghetti squash and it was SO good. In fact I’ve recently made the recipe again with two versions -one with noodles, one with spaghetti squash, and my entire family including the kids preferred the squash version!

Ingredients:
-1 cup of buttermilk (add a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar for every 1 cup of milk, or powdered milk. Sit for 5-10 minutes)
-3 Chicken breasts (I sliced them to be more like chicken fingers for faster cooking time)
-2 Eggs (2 Tablespoons of powdered eggs, and 4 Tablespoons of water)
-1 cup of white or wheat flour. Add a small amount of cornmeal for a crunch
-2 Tablespoons of olive oil
-Package of spaghetti noodles, or 1 spaghetti squash
-Mozzarella cheese
–Homemade or store bought marinara sauce

Directions:
Soak chicken in buttermilk (overnight is best, but if you’re like me you’ll get about 15-20 minutes in and call it good). Place soaked chicken in a bowl with eggs, cover and coat evenly. Place flour in a ziploc bag. Put each strip of chicken in the flour bag one a time shaking it so the flour mixture coats the chicken evenly. Heat frying pan and olive oil, then place chicken on – turning once half way through.

Cook noodles or spaghetti squash separately and place in 9×13 pan. Pour marina sauce over the noodles. Place fried chicken on top of the noodles. Cover with a little (or a lot) of mozzarella cheese and a little more marinara. You don’t want TOO much marinara on top because you don’t want your chicken to get soggy – remember we like the CRUNCH. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes and ENJOY!

Needless to say- I was so glad I had some Food Storage items to help me make this recipe.