Wok's For Dinner: Chiken Fingers With Dipping Sauces

You know those days where you planned to make one thing, then realized you just didn't have the gumption to do it? That was me tonight. I actually got to bring baby girl home from G-ma's house--hooray! But it was after 7pm by the time we got here. I still intended on heating up the main dish, but didn't feel like making the side dishes to go with it. Still wanted something healthy, so I gave baby girl some grapes and she helped me out by pulling them off the stem. It was quite cute because she said "pop!" every time she pulled off a grape!

The recipe for tonight's meal came from the American Heart Association. Been a long time since I last made it, and since I bought chicken strips for a really good deal (about $1.20) at Food Lion, I figured it would be a good meal to make. Click here for the original recipe. My version is below.

Chicken Fingers With Dipping Sauces

Ingredients:
1 egg
1 pound chicken tenders, all visible fat discarded
Vegetable oil
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup plain dry bread crumbs
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp shredded or grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp dried basil, crumbled
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
Crack egg open into a medium-size bowl and whisk slightly. Dip chicken tenders into egg and set aside. Heat 3 Tbsp of oil into a large skillet on medium heat. Mix remaining ingredients into a medium-size bowl. Take chicken out of egg bowl and dip into bread crumbs mixture. Coat real good, then put chicken into skillet with hot oil. Cook chicken about 7 minutes per side or until nice & golden brown and juices run clear.

I know. I was SOOO bad cooking these in oil in a skillet! I've never done that before. Never ever fried chicken. But I was kinda' in a hurry on freezer meal cooking day and oddly enough did not have patience to wait on this to bake. So I thought I'd give it a shot and fry 'em up in the skillet. I didn't use a lot of oil, so they certainly weren't deep-fried. And I made sure to let them sit on some paper towels to get the oil off real good. After cooling off, I placed the chicken fingers in a gallon-size freezer bag, squeezed out the air, sealed the bag up & froze them. Then pulled them out yesterday to thaw in the frig 24 hours. Heated up in the microwave about 30 seconds (didn't heat them all up, just enough for baby girl and I). For the "sauces", I used honey mustard and ketchup. Fancy schmancy stuff, I know! But it worked and we were able to sit down to a hot & delicious homecooked meal in record time!