Ultime Chicken Fingers Beans Beans Beans

Wait, what?

Yeah, well I left work REALLY late on Thursday and was pretty pissed off and in no mood to cook.
So I went to Brookshires, bought a rotisserie chicken, french bread, Bob Evans Mashed Potatoes and Wavy Lays and Dean's Ranch Dip. I know not a good thing, but let me tell I needed that.

So today I decided what the hell let's make both, all right my wife suggested it when I realized I didn't have the ground beef for Beans Beans Beans, why not also make the Ultimate Chicken Fingers I hadn't made. So that's tonight's game plan.

I just want to say I hate breading things because I suck at it, and tonight's meal was no exception.  That being said the Chicken Fingers are straight forward and easy to make. I will mention since Evie can't have eggs I use Ener G Egg Replacer for any recipe that needs it, including this one.  Sometimes it turns out well, sometimes not really.  Let's use the pictures as our tools, don't compare them to the Betty Crocker site though, as there is no comparison.

I basically just throw them all in the zip lock bag and shook them all together then placed them on the pan.  Although I forgot to grease the foil which caused half the breading to get stuck, oh well.  Then I waited about 10 minutes before flipping them. 10 minutes later I flipped them again at my wife's instance they be "extra done."  Also the foil proved difficult to remove all the chicken easily, but eventually I won, losing more breading in the process.

The beans on the other hand I changed that recipe up a bit as well.  I made these on the stove top rather than in the stove since there would be 100 degree difference between the two and I don't have a stock pot I can put in the oven, although I am sure a casserole dish would work too or a Crock Pot for that matter!

I made the bacon as directed, and it smelled so good, and crumbled so easy.  Then I just sautéed the onions in the bacon grease.  Then I completely changed everything else, sort of.  To the onions I added the barbecue sauce, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, liquid smoke, salt and pepper. Then I took it from the pan to a big pot. Added all the beans, drained and rinsed where required and mixed it all up.  I set it to low, put on lid and stirred it a little every few minutes.  The I kept tasting the beans the whole way through and I figured they were done after about 20 minutes, but decided to leave them goin until my wife concluded the chicken was done as well.

Lentils are delicious

I know what you're thinking, that can't be true, but they are - check out the recipe first...

So pics below.  I will definitely make this again because its easy and tastes great. Plus leftovers.

I made twice as many lentils as called for in the recipe to ensure leftovers

 Bell Pepper

 Onion

 Lentils boiling away for 20 minutes

 Chopped up Green Bell Pepper and Onion

 I don't have whole tomatoes at the moment, so I improvised

 Little oil in the pan

 Throw in the veggies

 Lentils are almost done

 Veggies are beginning to get done

 Throw in the tomatoes add salt and pepper to taste

 Lentils twenty minutes later

 Drained

 Oops that's too small

 Put everything in the big pot

20 minutes later on low, simmering.

Now I will say my little one she didn't care for it at all - but the Jello Banana pudding I made for dessert and sadly have no pictures of was a hit.

Pork, it's the other white meat and it's what I am having for dinner tonight

Allrecipes.com again for this recipe. What can I say I really like the site.  This was easy to make, I am actually still making them. I searched Google for this mashed potato recipe and they're already done.

I basically wrote this all the previous blog posts talking about this attempt to cook at home while I was waiting for this to finish baking, the only downside of this recipe is waiting 90 minutes to enjoy it. On the plus side I got some dishes cleaned and did some other cleaning around the house while I waited. I bet with slight modification it would be possible to make this in a crock pot as well, I'll have to think about it. Below are some pictures I took while making tonight's dinner. Also this probably isn't healthy cooking, but I don't care. Anyone who has read my blog knows I am fat and loving it.

I didn't get any pictures of the initial preparation. Oh well...
First up we have this picture of the cream of mushroom soup mixed with milk and white wine.

Next up we have the pork chops, after being in the oven for an hour.

 Now we've got the mixture on top of the chops going back in for 30 minutes.

 Meanwhile I've made the mashed potatoes and now I am just waiting for the chops to finish.

Now everything is done and we're all ready to eat!!

 At first I was a little worried because it had a wine like aroma, but you couldn't taste it anymore and after the foil had been off for a few minutes

 My wife Chelsea who is very particular about the "done-ness" of food and she wholeheartedly approved.

 I just took a scoop of mashed potatoes and added it to each plate, covered it in the sauce and chowed down.

Okay so for the record, this was the best thing I've made so far this week. It was AWESOME!!
I've always been a big fan of pork chops.  The sauce made an excellent gravy for the mashed potatoes and there is so much left that it can probably last two lunches, or not...
I am definitely going to save this recipe and make it again some day!

Crock Pot gets used again to make Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup

So this was the first time I made anything like this and I loved it, recipe in the link back there. I followed all of the recipe, except the beer, I just put in 1 and 1/2 cup water. It was still very flavorful. Pretty much all the stuff I used was Food Club brand from Super 1 Foods because it was inexpensive and just as good as the name brand. I don't have any prep pictures, but I still have a plastic-ware container full that I am taking to lunch tomorrow.

Now I will say because I didn't get home to take the chicken out and shred it and put it back in, it was still okay, When I tried to take the chicken out it literally fell apart on the fork.  So I just took a fork and knife and cut it up in the crock pot. Turned out just fine.

When I removed it from the crock pot and placed it in the bowl I added sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese and some tortilla chips.  Everyone liked them, even Evie, our two year old daughter.

Below is the leftover I am taking to lunch tomorrow. I can't wait! My wife took some to lunch today and she said it was great.  We just put some chips in a zip lock bag and she took them that way.

I am definitely making this again. This gets 5 stars in my recipe book!