Friday, 4/22/2011

Tonight we drove to Spokane to spend Easter with my family.  Katie and I met Ben downtown for dinner before starting our drive.  In the past we have headed straight out only to have to stop for a meal an hour down the road.  It seemed, since we were not able to leave before 5pm, that having dinner first would be better for traffic and our stomachs.  We went to a Red Robin just a block away from Ben's office. 

Katie had chicken strips and fries with ranch dressing and chocolate milk.  Ben had buffalo wings and a side caesar salad.  I had a bacon cheese burger without the bun and a side salad.  I ordered the burger in a lettuce wrap.  Well, that was just way too much lettuce.  Yikes!  I ended up pulling the burger out and eating it on it's own.  I sure did miss having ketchup on it.  It is amazing how much sugar is in a tablespoon of ketchup.  Too much for maintaining a low-carb diet right now.  

Our dining and travel plans worked perfectly.  We only had one minor slow down on our way to Spokane and didn't have to stop.  We are looking forward to a lovely weekend with our family:)

Sunday, 4/17/2011

I made Buffalo Chicken Fries tonight without the carbs, and it turned out better than I expected.  I didn't dredge the chicken in flour; I stuck with just salt and pepper.  For the buffalo sauce, I left out the honey and just used the hot sauce and butter.  The sauce didn't stick to the chicken quite like it does when the chicken is coated in flour, but it stuck enough.  I poured some of the extra sauce into a bowl and used it to dip my chicken fries in.  By the way, this recipe makes far more sauce than you need for the amount of chicken it calls for.  You can easily half the sauce recipe or double the amount of chicken.

For a salad, I combined mixed greens and mushrooms with a chipotle ranch dressing.  I think I am starting to really like mushrooms in my salads.

Monday, 1/31/2011

We finished off the buffalo chicken fries for our dinner tonight.  I put together a small fruit salad of raspberries and bananas to go with the chicken.  I cooked up some chicken nuggets for Katie, since she wouldn't eat the chicken we were having. 

Sunday, 1/30/2011

Ben was in charge of preparing dinner tonight.  I was babysitting at a friend's house all afternoon and couldn't be much help to him.  He made buffalo chicken fries and served a wedge of iceberg lettuce on the side.  Katie was not at all interested in the chicken, but she did show a surprising interested in the lettuce.  

Ben altered the quantities for the hot sauce mixture ingredients to try to increase the heat and decrease the sweetness.  He used 1/3 of a cube of butter and only a 1/2 tablespoon of honey.  We plan on having this again tomorrow, so he cooked up two pounds of chicken.  He worried that there was not going to be enough sauce for the extra chicken, and so we doubled it.  I didn't know that he had halved the honey in the first batch of sauce.  So, I added a full tablespoon of honey to the second batch.  The result of these changes was a slight increase in heat and it was still too sweet.  In the end, we didn't need the second batch of sauce. 

Sunday, 12/12/2010

We had a caesar salad and made Buffalo Chicken "Fries" for dinner tonight.  We followed a new recipe that I found in a Cuisine at Home magazine.  Here's the recipe followed by a couple notes.

BUFFALO CHICKEN "FRIES"

Makes 4 servings (1 lb.)
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
1/3 cup hot sauce (such as Frank's)
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 Tbsp. honey
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch-wide-strips, seasoned with salt and black pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil, divided

Directions:
1.  Whisk together hot sauce, butter, and honey in a large bowl.
2.  Toss chicken strips with flour in a large resealable plastic bag until coated; shake off excess flour.
3.  Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a large saute pan over medium-high; add half the chicken strips, saute until browned, about 2 minutes per side, then transfer to hot sauce mixture and toss to coat.  Repeat with remaining oil and chicken strips.

Notes:

1.  I used chicken tenders instead of chicken breasts.  They truly seem to be more tender and it took less time to cut up the pound of chicken.

2.  I didn't let the chicken brown quite enough.  I was worried about overcooking the chicken since the recipe said it would probably take only 2 minutes per side to brown.  

3.  The sauce was tasty, but not nearly hot enough to be called "buffalo".  I used the regular Frank's hot sauce.  Next time, I'll try the really hot variety to see if that makes a difference.  Ben thought the sauce tasted too much like honey and wanted more punch from the hot sauce.  

4.  I ended up eating the leftovers for lunch one day and dipped them into McDonald's buffalo sauce...yum!  Now, that's the flavor we were hoping for with the recipe.