Fat Tuesday!

Today was Fat Tuesday! The feasting day of Catholics and people celebrating Mardi Gras before Lent begins. So Since its a feasting day in my culture, why not cook up a storm :)

For dinner I made Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets. 

Ingredients:

Chicken breasts- usually a pack of 2 will do

Chips, what ever flavor, but keep it on the potato chip

and eggs. about 3 will do

So, the chips I always use are the Kettle brand, salt and pepper flavor. They're great and you dont have to add any extra seasoning to them until they're cooked. Even then I still leave them as is, my husband puts hot sauce on them.

Crack about 3 eggs in a small bow and beat them up!

After you beat the egg, section out your chicken breasts, that are preferably fresh and thawed, & trim the fatty and weird parts off of them. If you have thicker chicken breasts, take a filet knife, and split them. You'll get more nuggets this way.

 After the chicken is all trimmed, cut them down to the size of nugget you'd want. I usually keep them moderately thick, and in about 2.5 inch long strips. Not to thick, not too thin.

Close up of my cut nugget strips (below)

Then open your bag of chips, but not too wide. 

Get out a rolling pin and start to beat the bag of chips. You want there to be a small rip in the bag so the bag of chips doesn't randomly explode while you're beating the bag. That would be a mess

Then put your mashed up chips in another bowl. They should be moderately small, but not powdery. This will be your dredge material!

So, you take your trimmed and cut up chicken nuggets, dunk them in the egg, then pile it into the beat up bag of chips.

and cover the piece of chicken in chips. Dont be afraid to use your hands, it goes faster and usually better that way. 

& just start lining up in rows on a baking pan until you fill the pan.

below is usually how many nuggets I can get out of just 2 chicken breasts. Pretty impressive!

Just a word of advice, don't section out how many chips you think you'll need, beat up the WHOLE bag. A rookie mistake is giving the bag of chips to someone at your home, have them eat the rest of the bag, and not have enough to dredge your chicken. As you can see below, you'll use the whole bag of chips, or pretty darn close.

Put it in the oven at 375 for about 20-30 minutes. Until the chicken is cooked all the way through, and the chips are a nice golden brown.

For Dessert! Hornsby's Gluten Free beer cupcakes. 

(I'll add measurements after  the pictures)

Start by taking two Golden Delicious apples, peeled, and grate them in a cheese grater to get strip of apple. Then take a paper towel or cloth and squeeze the apple strips over a bowl to get the juice out of the apple. You can drink the juice later if you'd like.

In a mixing bowl, put butter and sugar, and mix until its fluffy.

Okay, before I go on, I need to put a disclaimer here, For all of my baking, I use Pamela's baking blends. ALL of her products are freaking fantastic and I cant even exaggerate that. Theres no weird measurements, no taking time to add extra flours to make it come together. This flour blend doesnt have any weird taste or after taste, & it makes your food taste just like the baked goods you used to eat before you had allergies. Seriously, try those products by Pamela. You can measure it just like normal baking flour. So in these cupcakes, I used the purple bag.

You'll get a pretty good mixture. After you add, cinnamon, eggs, nutmeg, almond milk and of course Hornsby's Gluten Free beer.

Then you'll add your apple shavings and take a spatula and slowly fold in the apples into the batter.

& Start filling those cups up!

into the oven for about 20 minutes at 350. 

& For any of you who are looking for beer alternatives, I love Hornsby's. It's very much a natural gluten free beer, meaning all thats in it is fermented apples and water (I think). The recipe originally called for Angry Orchard Crisp, but I prefer Hornsby's and it had a better deal at Fred Meyer. So If you buy the Hornsby's "Crisp" it really wont make a difference in the cupcake :)

I made a simple almond milk vanilla buttercream for the frosting, even though the recipe called for cream cheese frosting.

Put it in a piping bag, and iced those cupcakes!

RECIPE: 

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 C. sugar

2 1/2 c. flour 

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs- 

2 C. shredded apples (Golden Delicious preferably) 

1 C. Gluten free beer- Hornsbys Crisp or Angry Orchard, Apple Crisp

1/4 C. Milk (I used almond)

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp. vanilla

butter cream:

cream 2 sticks of butter,

add 3 cups powdered sugar or alternative

add vanilla

and slowly add milk of your choice 

while mixer is going.

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350- Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time to make sure they're mixed in well.

add flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. After thats mixed in, add in vanilla, milk, and very slowly add the beer in while the mixer is blending.

squeeze the juice out of the apple shreds, then gently fold into batter using spatula.

Line upcake pans, and put in the oven for 15-18 min (mine was about 22 minutes total)

see the original recipe here: http://bsugarmama.com/apple-beer-cupcakes/

and Enjoy!

--M