My chicken tender recipe

1 package chicken tenders (1.5-2lbs)

Peanut oil
Grated Parmesan (Kraft will do) cheese
Garlic powder
Curry powder
Salt
Whole wheat flour
Plain bread crumbs
Parsley flakes
2 or 3 eggs (depending on how much meat you have)

1. Thaw the chicken tenders.

2. If you want to serve buttered brown rice with them, start it in the rice cooker now. In one bowl, put five heaping large spoonfuls of whole wheat flour, six of bread crumbs (Six of whole wheat flour, seven of bread crumbs as you get closer to 2lbs of chicken), generous amount of garlic powder, curry powder, parsley flakes, and grated parmesan, a couple pinches of salt. Stir.

3. Start your wok (I use a nonstick wok) about 1/2in full of peanut oil on just below Medium on the stove burner. Slice the chicken tenders lengthwise to make more of them. Put two eggs (three as you approach 2lbs chicken) in another bowl and beat them well. Put out a third bowl lined with paper towels for the finished tenders.

4. Dip each tender first in egg, then in the flour/crumb mix, then lay in the wok. Don't put them close enough to touch. Cook for usually about 6min on one side, turn, cook them another 5min. Often takes several batches to get the job done.

5. Serve. (I usually divide them among us and serve them with buttered brown rice. My husband likes eating them with ranch dressing. Today, I am going to slice an avocado and serve avocado slices with it too.)

Note: At the end, I pour the remaining egg into the remaining flour mix, stir it up a bit, chop it into bits with a spoon, and dump it into the oil after turning off the burner. I turn them at about 2min. This little bit of economical food 'disposal' creates something my children call 'crunchies' and plead for eagerly.

My banana bread alteration

I got my original banana bread recipe off of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Over time, I made a few small changes, so I thought I'd list them down! I've got a loaf of it in the oven right now. It's good stuff!
The majority of this recipe can be credited to BHG cookbook, but a few changes are mine!

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oatmeal (I use Quaker quick oats)
1/4 baking soda
1/4 ground cinnamon (I just dump to taste, and sometimes I add a lil nutmeg or ginger)
1 egg
3 medium bananas (The riper, the better)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cooking oil (I use canola)

Grease the bottom and sides of a loaf pan and set aside. Set the oven to 375F. (The recipe says 350F, but my oven runs just a touch cool.) Combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Make a well in the center of the mixture and set aside.

In another bowl put in the bananas (peeled, of course) and the sugar. Mash with a fork until it's all combined. I do this in this order for two reasons. I'm going to want the 1/4 cup measure for the oil as well, and it's a pain to use it for sugar after using it for oil. Also, sugar somehow makes bananas easier to mash. It breaks something down, I think.

Add egg, oil, and a capful of vanilla extract to the bananas/sugar and mash/mix it all up good.

Add wet mixture all at once to the dry mixture and stir just until moistened. The batter should be a bit lumpy.

Spoon batter into the loaf pan and bake for an hour. Insert a toothpick (I use a butter knife) and if it comes out clean, the bread's done. Remove, let sit for about 10 minutes, dump it out upside-down on a wire rack, and let it cool further.

So what's the difference? Instead of using 1 1/2 cups of flour, I use 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup oatmeal. BHG adds 1 teaspoon shredded lemon peel and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans as optional. I don't like nuts and rarely have lemon peel, so I substitute a capful of vanilla extract and forget the nuts. BHG says specifically 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, but I just add some cinnamon and sometimes either nutmeg or ginger depending on my mood, keeping in mind that this is the spice and doesn't have much bearing on the constitution of the bread.

Busy Day Dinner

1 Turkey Carcass
1 cup rice
About 4-6 cups water (estimated)
1 can of peas that are going to go bad soon if they aren't used

So I put the carcass in the crock pot, along with the turkey neck. I don't like to waste parts of the turkey if I can use them! When it was good and soaked and warm, I picked all the meat off with my fingers. Ow! It was hot! But your fingers work MUCH better than a fork.

That left me with water and chicken. Some of the water I put in was saved from when I'd boiled the neck and giblets together in a pot. I just put the neck and water into a container to save for later, and now is later! What do I do with turkey giblets? I eat the liver and give the rest to the cats.

I added the rest of the gravy to make a good broth, and added some chicken boullion and a quarter cup of golden sherry just to make sure it's a good broth. Then I put in the rice and the peas.

I started the carcass heating at around noon, and it's a little after 2:30pm now. Supper is at around 5:30, which should give plenty of time for the rice to be rice and the alcohol to cook out of the broth. It's in a crock pot on high, doing its thing. I shouldn't have to worry about it anymore. Around 5:30 I'll heat up the rest of the rolls from the turkey dinner and serve them with the soup/stew/mash/whatever comes out.

The crock pot shows it's value whenever you are not going to have much time in the afternoon or evening to prepare dinner. It also does if you are going to kind of feed people all day as they go in and out. On Mondays my kid has Children's Choir right around the time that I'm usually cooking. Sometimes my mother brings him and my youngest sister, sometimes I bring him and my youngest sister, and sometimes we go together and chat while they're singing. In the latter two cases, the best meal is one that I can start before I leave and is safe to leave in an empty house. I balk at running the oven when I'm gone. The crock pot, however, is safe.

You can crockpot cheaper cuts of meat because several hours of slow-cooking in fluids will soften up just about anything. If you're doing that, I personally recommend doing it on high to make sure the stuff is heated safely. If you're running it overnight, you probably want it on low.

I love soup in particular in the crock pot because you can start it early and just add stuff whenever you think of it. It'll take a while longer to cook, but it'll get there! As long as you've got enough liquid in there, you can't really burn anything. Meat, rice, barley, certain kinds of beans, just toss a handful in and let it think about soup for a few hours!

As you can guess, I don't cook to recipe so much as I put things together with a creative flair that sometimes goes wrong and often turns out alright. So when I mention what I cook and how, expect a lot of leeway!