Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Why waste your money?



I'll admit that I'm a sucker for some convenience items on the diet. I'm a busy mom of 2 children, one who is a toddler, and the other who has several hours of therapy and school every day. I need meals that are quick and easy to make. Almost every time I headed to the store, I used to pick up a box of Ian's chicken nuggets. The awesome thing is that these nuggets are free of gluten, casein, soy, eggs, and nuts. The bad thing is that they are about $6 a box and only have 9 nuggets which amounts to a measly 2 servings. When I finally got around to trying more homemade recipes, I discovered a recipe for "McDonald's" chicken nuggets on gfcfrecipes.blogspot.com. The author takes no credit for the recipe as he found it somewhere on Yahoo but I must say these nuggets are great, simple (calling for only 6 ingredients), and much much cheaper than $6 for 2 servings. The downside is that these are fried. However, I don't serve these every day so it works for us in moderation. You'll have to adjust the serving for your child but for my son who is 3, I can make 8 servings on a regular package of chicken tenders. I divide each package into 4 and freeze. Then when I'm ready, I make 2 servings (each about 6-8 small nuggets) out of each quarter and then Austin has 2 ready to heat meals for the week. I could easily make all 8 servings but like I mentioned, they are fried so it's a treat. I also don't know how good these will taste or how long they last if frozen once made. But it's simple so it's easy to do a serving at a time. Here is the recipe:

Chicken - cut up into small nugget size pieces (mine are about the size of chick-fil-a)
1/3 cup gf flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup water

Mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Then, combine the vinegar and soda in another small bowl, quickly dumping it in the flour as it reacts. Then, quickly add the water. Whisk well. Let this sit for about 5 minutes. It thickens. Meanwhile, heat some oil in a frying pan. Mix your chicken pieces in the batter and let them sit in there while the oil heats. When hot, fry until golden brown and cooked through.

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