Spice-rubbed Chicken & Gratin Dauphinois

It's officially summer around here and it finally feels like it!  We've been hovering right around ninety degrees here in the tri-state area all week.  And I love it.  Love!  Of course my hair has been all sorts of crazy in this high humidity, but since I don't have a job right now, who cares! 

I've fallen into a pretty good routine through my unemployed weeks.  Generally Monday is my cleaning house day.  I'll do the laundry, vacuum and dust the apartment, run boring errands and cook the fanciest meal of the week.  By Tuesday I've run out of task-oriented things to do and tackle projects that have been sitting around for a while.  I'm talking scrapbooking, closet organizing, de-cluttering.

When Wednesday rolls around I don't really have much to do around the house, so I text some OSI friends and get together for brunch or lunch.  (This week we're heading to Clinton Street Bakery for brunch and then shopping for interview clothes in SOHO!)  Wednesday night used to be Boyfriends night to cook, but since I'm home already and he doesn't really like to cook, I've taken it back.

By the time Thursday comes, I'm starting to get a little bored at home.  I usually will jump on my bike and head to the local park for relaxing and reading in the sun.  Thursday usually also means I've run out of fruits and vegetables and a Whole Foods run is necessary. 

Friday is Treat Yourself! day.  This week that consists of an orthodontist appointment!  Thrilling.  Generally it means I hang out at Starbucks then head across the street to the nail salon.  Mostly I'm just excited for Friday because it means the weekend is here and I get to spend time with BF.  It's his job to entertain me through the weekend!

Restaurant Wars - Red Lobster

I have two complaints when it comes to Red Lobster.  First, the wait.  I have never once walked into this restaurant and gotten a table right away.  It could be three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon and you could walk in to find a forty minute wait.  Second, the service.  I'm sure it stems from the really long wait and all the people wanting to sit down and eat, but the service you get is more along the lines of - sit down, eat your food and get out.  Red Lobster isn't the European, sit as long as you'd like, linger over a cup of coffee and dessert, kind of place.  Don't take your time, eat your food and give up that table!

The reason we come to RL?  The cheddar bay biscuits of course.  Isn't that why everyone goes there?  That and I don't cook a lot of fish at home because someone won't eat it.  Eating out is the best way for me to get my lobster, fish and shellfish fix.  When ordering out, I get to order the shmorgasboard of shrimp, lobster and fish meal! 

So after waiting almost fifty minutes for our table, Boyfriend and I ordered.  He got his favorite chicken linguine dish and I loaded up on broiled fish and shellfish.  I was trying to order something that wasn't super greasy, apparently broiling also requires heaps of butter, because my dinner was still floating in oil.  To was Boyfriends pasta, but that's just the way he likes it.  We ate lots of cheesey biscuits and had almost all of our dinners to take home.

For our Red Lobster dinner at home, I had to split it into two nights.  There was no way that I could make a pasta dinner and a fish and shrimp dinner at the same time.  As much as I would like to tell you that Boyfriend helps out in the kitchen, his kitchen skills begin and end at heating.  He's had a few culinary masterpieces, but for the most part he's a prepared food preparer. 

Sunday night we had spicy chicken linguine with my own take on cheddar bay biscuits.  Monday night I threw some chicken in the fridge for Boyfriend while I prepared myself some lemon tilapia and shrimp scampi.  I'm in love with the way the chicken and pasta turned out.  It was much lighter than the restaurant meal, but so full of flavor.  It's perhaps because I used an aged parmesan cheese that was amazing.  I wanted to eat it by the chunk.

Monday nights fish dinner was a little tricky to pull together, mostly because fish cooks so fast.  The fish was ready to go much faster than the shrimp and I wasn't ready to juggle all these things (I was also preparing broccoli, stuffing and Boyfriends chicken!).  The shrimp scampi was much lighter than what I got at the restaurant, mostly because I cooked the shrimp in half butter/half olive oil.  My tilapia was simply cooked in a little butter and spritzed with some lemon.  Simple and delicious.

If you only make one thing from this post, make the biscuits!  Oh man, I think I ate four or five of these Sunday night.  I totally deserved it after that long, four-mile run.  There are many recipes for these biscuits online, but they almost all utilize Bisquick.  I was looking to make them entirely from scratch.  With a little tweaking, I think what I came out with was amazing.  If you aren't a salt freak like I am, maybe cut the garlic salt in half.

Southwest Chicken Burger

When I was a first year graduate student, living alone for the very first time, the Better Homes & Garden cookbook fed me all year long.  How I managed with just one cookbook and a minimal knowledge of online recipe websites, I'll never know. 

I grew up, making very few dinners myself. My mom worked evenings for most of my childhood so we were often left with two options for dinner. 1. A casserole that was prepared by mom and waiting in the fridge for us to heat up in the oven. 2. Dad was cooking.

Now, my dad is great. He's a smart guy, a chemical engineer in fact, but cooking just isn't his forte. Even to this day, he likes meals that require no more than four ingredients. His specialty is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And many a times I've seen him eat Perry's ice cream for dinner. If dad was 'cooking,' that usually meant we were having a frozen dinner or some soup. He heats and eats, no prep required.

The only thing I ever did in the kitchen was bake and the recipe was generally from the back of the chocolate chip bag.

The last Christmas before I moved to Madison was used to prepare me for my eventual move out of the house. I got pots and pans, towels, a laundry basket and the BHG cookbook. All a single girl needs!

These days I have cookbooks for anything I'm looking to prepare, but I still enjoy looking back at my first cookbook, leafing through its wrinkled, sauce-coated pages, my own handwritten notes adorning the margins. I think of the time I spent in my closet-like kitchen, cooking on my 1950's stove and turning out my first meals on my own.

Why Bother? 2012 - Pickles

There are a few Why Bother challenges this year that I was not looking forward to.  Pickles was on the list of those that I was dreading.  It's not that I don't like pickles, or that I'm afraid of them, like one of my pickle-phobic coworkers (yes, seriously).  I was a little apprehensive about the process of pickling and preserving. 

I was well-prepared with canning cookbooks, mason jars and a huge pot.  The cookbooks courtesy of my fascination with jams, jellies, pickles and all things canned last year.  The jars and elephantine pot complements my mom, who was storing them in her basement for twenty years (they're vintage Bell mason jars!).  All I had to do was dive in and get to pickling.

Once I read a little bit about preserving and determined I wouldn't get botulism from homemade pickles (botulism tends to be found in low-acid preserved foods, pickles contain a lot of acid!), I read on and made a list for the spice store.

Did you stock up on spices last week when we made ketchup and mustard?  Well, you'll need those spices and a whole bunch more.  Mustard seeds, dill seeds, whole cloves, whole allspice, cardamom seeds.  The list is long on this one, unless you can locate pickling spices.

After searching several stores, I found pickling spices at Fairway.  If your grocery store isn't well stocked, I would suggest heading to Penzey's online.  They've got everything. 

Between my three canning cookbooks, there were fifteen different cucumber pickle recipes!  That's not even including the other vegetables and fruits that you can pickle - asparagus, green beans, pineapple, peaches, beets, garlic and plums.  The pickling section was extensive.  I chose to go with refrigerator dill slices and preserved bread and butter chips. 

If you want to make pickles, be sure to set aside a few hours.  Just like making ketchup last week, this was a bit of a process.  Between preparing the jars, making the pickling liquid, preparing the cucumbers and finally canning the veggies, you'll be in the kitchen for at least two hours.  The results though, are beyond anything I've had from the store.

The dill slices, my refrigerator pickles, came out crunchy, full of flavor and slightly sweet.  The bread and butter chips have been amazing on our turkey burgers, and straight out of the jar.  I don't see myself making anymore cucumber pickles any time soon, I have a pretty good stockpile in the pantry and fridge!  I do find myself leafing through the cookbooks, trying to decide what to pickle next!

Paradise Chicken

Since I shared with you an island drink yesterday, I thought that today I would tell you a little bit about that island.  St Kitts, home of Ting, is part of the Caribbean country including its neighboring island Nevis.  Boyfriend and I spent a week there a few years ago and loved every minute of it.

If you are looking for a quiet island with lots to do, this is the place to book your next vacation.  Boyfriend and I were drawn to St Kitts with its promise of lush rain forests, clear blue waters and monkeys!

Yes, monkeys!  The monkeys that live on St Kitts are not naturally from the island and were brought there by the French as pets in the 1600's.  Now they abound in the rain forests and you can even find them by the beaches, drinking your cocktails.  (Enjoy a laugh and google drunken St Kitts monkeys!)

You should definitely judge your vacation location depending on its lack or abundance of monkeys.

We also spent a good portion of time hiking through the rain forest and walking through Basseterre.  We ate locally made ice cream in the port during the day and barbecued chicken on the beach at night.  There was always an abundance of empty beaches with calm water for snorkeling and wave-filled beaches for the acrobat in your family.

We lived on chicken while we were on St Kitts.  The many different beach huts we frequented all offered their delicious poultry options.  For our Caribbean dreams menu, chicken had to be the main course.  I chose a dish with heat, traditionally found on St Thomas.  If you're not a fan of spicy foods, just remove the habanero pepper!

Thai chicken salad

We've been back from vacation for a whole week now and I guess we're back into the swing of things.  I could always use an extra day of vacation after returning from vacation, but sadly I had to get back to work.

Thankfully, I had a slow week to return to.  My calendar was unusually sparce as the directors were heading out of town for a big meeting.  This left me with little to do but work in the lab and made me a happy chemist.

Years ago, during my first organic chemistry lab, my lab partner and I would count down the weeks of labs remaining.  From check-in the first week, we would trudge to lab like we were heading to break rocks for six hours.  As the weeks went on, we would break glassware, spill precious product and try to understand why we were doing what we were doing.  At the end of the semester we happily checked out of lab and were so happy the semester was behind us.

As a sophomore in college, I had no idea what I would be doing in ten years.  If you told me that I would gladly spend my hours working away in a lab, I would have told you that you were off your noggin. 

The difference now?  I actually know what I am doing.  When you start organic chemistry labs, you don't understand what is going on in your flask.  As a PhD chemist in the lab these days, I have a much better view of the atoms and molecules at work.  And I love it.

Lesson?  You never know what you'll be doing in ten years.  I wonder what I'll be up to in 2022?

Sweet Potato & Choriquo Gratin

I am very excited to announce my very first Wilde in the Kitchen Bake Sale! But I need your help! In June, less than six weeks away, I will be participating in Relay for Life out here on Long Island. For those of you who don't know exactly what the event entails, here is the description straight from the American Cancer Society.

Relay For Life is a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease.

At Relay, teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight events up to 24 hours in length. Relayers do not have to walk all night, but each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event.

The event begins with a lap completed by cancer survivors, showing their victory over cancer. The caregivers then join in the next lap, showing their support for those who have battled cancer. Finally, the remaining walkers join the track and start the relay. As daytime passes into night, luminaria bags are lit to commemorate those who have lost their fight to cancer. The relayers then walk through the night with the light of those now gone guiding them around the loop.

Our Relay will take place from 6 pm until 6 am the next day and our team will be camping out at the local college. I will be relaying with several of my work colleagues! Being a newer member of my company, I'm looking forward to not only raising money for ACS, walking with survivors, but also getting to know some of my coworkers a little better.

Now I need your help! May 17-18 will be the Wilde in the Kitchen Bake Sale for Relay! I'll be putting up several candy confections to help raise money for Relay and am looking for people to join in the bake sale!

How does it work?  Don't worry, I do all the heavy lifting!  You provide an image and web address for whatever baked good you would like to donate to the bake sale.  People bid on the items by e-mailing me with their bids.  Once the bake sale closes, the baked goods go to the highest bidder!  Here's where your work comes in...  Within a week, you just have to bake your item and mail it to the winner!

What would be a good item for the bake sale?  Anything that ships well, is delicious and is something that you love.  Cookies & Bars ship really well.  I'll be making several different candy recipes to contribute to the sale.  Marshmallows are their own packing material!

Do you have a little extra time in your week to whip up something sweet and delicious? Send me an e-mail at wildeinthekitchen (at) hotmail (dot) com and let me know!

As a thanks for your help and kindness, I've made you dinner. Kinda. In order to prepare for an all-night relay walk I think my team is going to need some carbs. So make yourself this spicy gratin and leaf through your dessert cookbooks!

Why Bother? 2012 - Buffalo Sauce

Why Bother?  Because I'm from Buffalo, that's why we bother!  Sure, I haven't lived there in almost ten years, but it's in my blood (we undergo a transfusion of wing sauce as children, it's how we stay so warm in the winter).  Not only am I going to share with you my favorite Buffalo wing sauce recipe, I am going to lay down the rules when it comes to chicken wings.  This is very serious business.  Get a pad of paper and a pen, you'll want to take notes.

Rule #1 - Do not EVER bread your chicken wings!  Buffalo chicken wings are naked, never breaded.  Ever.  While in Madison, WI I ordered some Buffalo wings from my favorite pizza place (Hello Glass Nickel!).  They arrived with a thick, crunchy, bread coating.  I was appauled.  Stick with making your delicious pizza, you're doing it wrong with your wings.

If you bread your chicken wings, I do not know what you are doing.  Perhaps you're making yourself a little fried chicken drumstick?  Maybe you're thinking the sauce needs something to stick to?  Don't be crazy and put down the breadcrumbs.

Rule #2 - If it isn't spicy, it isn't Buffalo sauce.  I have had a series of butter-rich, lack-luster "Buffalo wings" in the past.  There is a place right around the corner from our current apartment that sells Buffalo wings, touted as "Nuclear!"  Either I have fried all my taste buds, or someone forgot to add the hot sauce.  You need the heat!  I'm not telling you that habanero peppers need to be involved, but you've got to sweat a little!  They should be just spicy enough that you think twice about rubbing your eye after eating a wing.

Rule #3 - Serve 'em with a side of blue cheese.  I do not want to hear of anyone eating their buffalo sauce with ranch dressing.  It is so very, very wrong.  This is a mistake that I have seen many a midwesterner make.  It most often happens when someone offers you a Buffalo chicken sub sandwich.  To get it clear, a Buffalo-style chicken sub should be as follows (and no different) - crispy chicken tenders slathered in wing sauce, lettuce, blue cheese dressing and provolone cheese.  Make this sandwich now, it will change your life.

That's it.  Those are my simple rules about chicken wings.  If you don't want to follow the wing rules, you must call your food "chicken wings" sans the Buffalo. 

If you want to take your wings to the next level, you make your own sauce.  This is the wing sauce that my family has been making all my life.  It's spicy, sweet and tangy.  If you are lacking one or two of these ingredients, I'm okay with the tried and true "melt a stick of butter, add a bottle of hot sauce" method.  You might even be able to find the original Buffalo sauce on the shelf at your supermarket.  If you come across "Anchor Bar" Buffalo sauce, that's the one, the original.  Buy the hottest variety that they sell and whip up a batch!  Just don't bread your chicken.

Are you originally from the Buffalo area too?  What are some of your Buffalo wing rules?

Buffalo Cheesey Bread

Things have been so crazy here in Connecticut!  I'm so sad that I won't be able to head home to Buffalo at all this summer.  Major changes are happening (stay tuned) and I'm going to be busy here on the coast for the next few months.  This is good and sad at the same time.

The best time of the year to go to Buffalo is the summertime!  Fall always comes to town with rain and cloudy skies.  Winter barges in with layer upon layer of snow that doesn't completely disappear until March.  Spring slowly melts away and you find yourself in June.  The sun finally welcomes you in the morning and the nights are warm and starry.

Summertime also brings with it some of my favorite Western New York events.  You must head out to the Taste of Buffalo, but be aware, don't go with a large group.  There are so many people at the TOB that it's hard to make your way from one end of Main street to the other.  The food makes the trip totally worth it! 

I'm also a huge fan of Canalfest.  Held in the Tonawandas, it celebrates the Erie canal!  Or, what's left of it, I guess.  Whatever it celebrates, I try to plan my trips home around this event.  It all starts with a huge craft fair weekend, where you can buy everything from coasters to sheds.  There's a Miss Canalfest competition (which I totally wanted to be in when I was little, too bad I wasn't a resident...) and there is food galore!  Ribbon fries with vinegar, funnel cakes with powdered sugar and sausage with peppers and onions.  I always weigh a good five pounds more by the end of the day.

I also am missing my family this summer.  Boat rides on the Niagara river with my parents.  Long walks by the creek with Zoe, my happy, fluffy, red, golden retriever puppy.  Discussing fruit trees and computers with my brother (granted, that computer talk is usually one sided, not my side).  Soon I'll have the time to come home, just not in the next few months.

To cheer myself up and remind myself of home, I made some bread.  It's packed to the top with Buffalo flavor, the only thing that would have made it even more amazing was if I had some blue cheese in the house.  Next time!

Buffalo Mac’n’Cheese

I’m downright excited! You know why? This week is my mom’s birthday week (Happy Birthday Mom!!!) and for her birthday we are headed to New York City. A girls weekend to be filled with shopping, Mary Poppins and cupcakes! I’ve been to New York a many number of times, but this will only be Mom’s second trip to the big city. Second trip in the winter, maybe the third time we should shoot for the summer?

Say hello to delicious

There are many things that I love doing while in New York. In general I’ll be there with boyfriend and we love to wander the streets, popping into cute shops we find along the way. Every time we go, we find ourselves in someplace we’ve never been before. The first few times we visited the city (back in the summer of 2003) we were without our handy iPhones. We relied on guidebooks and maps to help us find our way through the streets. When it was time for a meal we would wander aimlessly, somehow missing all of the restaurants along the way. How? I have no idea.

These days we have GPS, Open Table and a better sense of direction. The last few trips to the city we went with more of a plan, places we wanted to visit and reservations. We’ve dined at Asian fusion joints, American bistros and English pubs, but my favorite place is just a hole in the wall. Located on 12th St near 1st Ave is S’mac. What do they serve? Macaroni and cheese. And it’s delicious.

Sadly S’mac is in New York and I am not. So, I decided that it was necessary to replicate my favorite dish, the Buffalo Mac’n’Cheese. And maybe to drag my mom to S’mac next weekend…

Buffalo Chicken Burgers with Carrot-Celery Slaw

If you grew up in my house, then you grew up grilling, all year round. The weather turning cold is no reason for my parents to pack away the grill. Pouring down rain isn’t even a reason to use the stove. We would grill out on the deck in the chilly fall winds, during the darkest days of winter and through the wet days of spring. Remember one more thing, I grew up in Buffalo, NY. That’s right, snow country. It is not uncommon to visit my parents house in December, to discover a little shoveled path, leading to the grill.

Personally, I think my parents are a little kooky. I think it harkens back to one moment in my childhood. Being asked to start the grill, by myself. I believe I let the gas run for a little long, and there was a grand BAM! when I struck the lighter. No fireball, no singed eyebrows, no trip to the emergency room. Just one traumatized eleven-year old. I will still, to this day, not light the grill, but I love coming home in December and grilling hot dogs at home.

I know, it’s a little crazy on my part. I’m a chemist. I use Bunsen burners all the time. I work with chemicals that will spontaneously light on fire. Yet I am still afraid of the gas grill. This is why I own a grill pan (I also don’t have any outdoor space and I think my apartment building wouldn’t be too happy with me running a grill in my bedroom). However, if you are brave enough to light your grill, then you should go get out some burgers.

The best part of these burgers is the slaw. Crunchy, cool and tangy, it complements the spicy burgers perfectly. If you happen to have a food processor with slicing and shredding discs, then your prep for this slaw is minimal. The burgers can be store-bought, because they get their flavor from the hot sauce. And really, how can I pass up a recipe that puts wing sauce on a burger?

White Chicken Chili

It seems as though fall quickly took over, leaving summer just a memory. It has been so long since I lived in the Northeast that I forgot how quickly those last days of summer disappear. Being caught off guard by a warm day waning into a cool evening. Going to sleep with the windows open and waking up with a cool, crisp air in the house. The sun dipping low earlier and earlier in the day.

I never want to let go of these last few days of summer, but I love these early days of fall. It is this time of year that I want to be able to enjoy the day, outside, in the sun. Yet I also want to bundle up at night, huddled under the covers. I want to eat ripe peaches with warm apple cider. Can I still wear sandals with my long-sleeved shirts?

On a recent cool night I decided it was just fallish enough for chili. I love to make chili. It is the perfect combination of light and filling, ideal for this in between time. I like to make my chili with turkey and cannellini beans, rather than beef and kidney beans. A white chili has a milder flavor that I like to kick up with lots of spices.

This recipe can be doubled or halved, it is incredibly versatile. I’ve made it with chicken, with more beans, with seasoned tomatoes, even with hot peppers. It freezes well, so you can make a big batch and save half for later. So bubble up a pot of chili, pop some corn bread in the oven and get the sour cream ready. Fall is coming, but hopefully this will help make the transition a little smoother.

Buffalo Wing Sauce

Being a born and bred western New Yorker is a huge responsibility. When you tell the world that you are from Buffalo, they assume you are guru of all things food, sports and weather. Perhaps you have moved away from the WNY and are enduring a tough winter in your new home state. While trapped at work, the roads impassable, your coworkers simply say “Well, you’re from Buffalo, this is nothing for you.” Because we all know, Buffalo is covered in at least six feet of snow for the entirety of winter. Our Buffalo cars laugh at six feet of snow and ask for more. Buffalo plows are magical and snow flees from their paths as they careen down the highway.

Western New Yorkers are also HUGE sports fans. Home to the world famous Buffalo Bills, we know the glory of victory, and the disappointment of defeat. Let’s not forget our beloved Buffalo Sabres. They are also aware of difficult glory/disappointment cycle. You mention “Wide Right” or “No Goal” to any WNYer and they know, they have a story, they were there.

Buffalo is also world famous for its food. Well, perhaps not world famous, but you can’t go to any Americana restaurant without seeing “Buffalo wings” on the menu. Buffalo loves food. If you love food you should head to Buffalo in the summer, where you can find a food festival every single weekend. Italian, Hellenic, Allentown, German, Scottish, Polish and Canal fests are just the start to the summer festival season. The main event is always the Taste of Buffalo. Touted as the largest two-day food festival in the United States, the Taste of Buffalo is a great place to find your new favorite restaurant.

Now, I’m not sure if I can call myself a true western New Yorker. I can muster very little enthusiasm for the Bills or Sabres, even when the tickets are free, and there is free food. While I can handle a 2WD car in a snowstorm, I would be much happier on a beach. However, I do love to eat. I figure I don’t need to watch sports or live in a snowglobe, but I do need to eat. And why not eat good food?

As a kid, my dad would make the best wing sauce. It could be a hot, humid summer day or a cold blustery winter night. The chicken made with this sauce was perfect. It was never the same, but had the same notes of flavor every time. The sauce came together so quickly, and it was always a mystery. My dad is not a chef, he’s an engineer. He is very good with cooking fish, making a mean PB&J and this sauce. My brother and I would constantly ask for chicken and wing sauce, fortunately my dad wouldn’t always make it, otherwise we’d likely be 400 lbs.

While visiting home I decided that I must know how to make this sauce. If I can’t make a good Buffalo wing sauce, then I might as well renounce my WNYer card, without the love of football and snow I really would have nothing else. We decided to balance out the heavy sauce with healthy chicken tenders, which my mom breaded and baked. The sauce was a little harder to nail down. Other than the very specific one stick of butter, everything else was a squirt of this a dash of that. I’ve done my best to eyeball measurements to help you get the desired result. The quantities of every ingredient can be changed to suit your particular tastes. Play around and enjoy a little bit of Buffalo flavor!

Buffalo Wing Sauce

1 stick butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup ketchup
2-3 tbsp hot sauce
Dash of chili powder
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp BBQ sauce or Mustard (for a sweet, or tangy sauce)
Dash garlic powder
Dash onion powder
Salt to taste

- Slowly melt 1 stick of butter in a pan over low heat. Add lemon juice. Whisk until butter is no longer transparent and slightly thickened.
- Add ketchup and stir until the sauce changes to a bright orange color.
- Add hot sauce to your desired heat level. This is best tested by smelling the sauce. Determine how much you would like your mouth to burn by how much it burns your nose!
- Add remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth. Continue to whisk for an additional 2 minutes over low heat.

This sauce will break after a few minutes, so be sure to stir often to maintain a smooth sauce.

Healthy Chicken tenders

1 lb chicken tenders
2 cups bread crumbs (we went with a mixture of crushed whole grain crackers, wheat crackers and panko breadcrumbs)

Dash of onion powder, garlic powder, dried parsley, salt and pepper
Egg Beaters (or buttermilk for a slightly tangier tender)

- Mix breadcrumbs with spices in a shallow dish or pie pan

- Soak chicken tenders in egg beaters for a minute (30 minutes if using buttermilk)
- Coat tenders with bread crumbs and line on a cooking-sprayed foil-lined cookie sheet.
- Lightly spray tenders with cooking spray and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, turning after 10 minutes.

Enjoy your chicken with some carrots, celery and blue cheese!