BREAKING NEWS: OMG THIS CHICKEN, YOU GUYS

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Monday evening to bring you this important update.

YOU GUYS THIS IS THE BEST CHICKEN I’VE EVER MADE

SO I thought I’d record the “recipe” for posterity, and also so I can make it again next week.

Crispy Coconut Chicken Tenders

Ingredients:

  • 8 Chicken Tenders
  • 1/3 c Tapioca Starch
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1 c Shredded and/or flaked coconut (smaller pieces are better)
  • Trader Joe’s onion salt
  • Sea Salt
  • Coconut Oil for frying

Directions:
I mean, there’s not much to it really…

  1. Preheat oven to 350, just in case. Or cook some vegetables in there while you’re frying
  2. Get 3 wide, shallow dishes.
  3. In the first dish, dump the tapioca starch. Keep the bag out in case you need more
  4. In the 2nd dish, beat your eggs really well
  5. In the 3rd dish, mix the coconut with enough onion salt and salt so that a pinch of it tastes good, not too salty, and there’s an even spread of onion bits. Next time I’ll measure.
  6. Heat about coconut oil in cast iron pan. You want it about 1/2″ deep. To test oil temperature, dip a piece of coconut in egg, and drop in the pan. If it sizzles nicely and floats, you’re good to go.
  7. Take one chicken finger, and roll it in the tapioca starch. Pick it up and shake off the excess.
  8. Quickly roll the chicken finger through the egg wash, try not to “wash” all of the starch off
  9. Roll the chicken in the coconut, pressing the coconut into the batter. I like to scoop from the bottom and press into the top to make sure enough small bits and salt/seasoning get distributed.
  10. Place directly into the hot oil.
  11. Repeat with 3 or 4 more chicken tenders. You want to cook in batches, so that your pan isn’t crowded. You want no tenders touching each other or the sides of the pan.
  12. Once you see a nice caramel brown on the edges, flip the tenders over. Cook until totally browned. If your tenders are bigger, you may need to flip onto the other edges
  13. Once they’re totally browned, take some kitchen scissors and cut into the thickest piece of the thickest tender to see if it’s cooked through. If it is, place on paper towel to soak excess oil. If it’s not, throw on a baking rack in the oven. Baking rack will help keep the bottom from getting soggy. If you don’t have one, just throw it on a cookie sheet, it’s all good.
  14. Repeat until all of your chicken is cooked! If you have lots of batches, you can also keep it warm in a cooler oven, usually around 200 degrees.

I served this with asparagus and a homemade spicy mayo (homemade mayo, tapatio, onion salt). Nom. Nom. Nom.

Ok, that’s all I had to add :D

W30 Day 2-5

This round, so far, has been so easy that I keep forgetting that I have things to say. I think that it being easy is noteworthy.

That being said, I woke up today CRANKY. That could be for a number of reasons, and probably is a combination of things, but regardless, I’ve been on the lookout for it. Self awareness has served me well, at least I can warn people and watch what comes out of my mouth, haha.

It’s still a bit early to say, but I think I’m going to have much less adjustment this time around. My base diet has been pretty clean, with the exception of a decent amount of cheese. It’s been the snacking that has been the worst, but that’s also the easiest thing to cut out.

So, in short, so far so good! We took measurements on Day 2, and again, it’s good to see that I haven’t gone too far off the rails. I’m really glad to be back on this track, and really happy to have support from Jon joining me. Having a compliant household is soooo much easier than existing within a non-compliant one!

I’ll try to post more often :) Until next time!

W60 R3D1

Jon and I have decided to embark on another WholeAdventure. His first 60 days, my second. I would say it’s harder than W30, but that’s not true. After 30 days you’re in the groove, and it’s not hard to keep going. And I saw way more benefits after 60 than I did after 30, especially in regards to my sugar addiction. 60 is my minimum, I need to get a better baseline, and have a more concrete plan for life after the round.

So, today was Day 1! Wee! We didn’t take measurements this morning, we’ll do it tomorrow. I was out of state for 5 days last weekend, and I decided while I was gone (and eating and drinking like I was on vacation, because I was) that I wanted to use the 1st of the month as a springboard. Jon took a little convincing, but he got on board!

This one is going to be pretty interesting, I think. I’ve got a good handle on keeping it simple. Going to try to keep our costs down, while also not boring the hell out of us (mostly him, not me). I’m going to miss cheese more than anything, as I had pretty much given myself a free cheese pass for the past 6 months, but I know it’s not the best for me, so that’s ok. Maybe it takes longer than 60 days to break a cheese addiction? Haha we’ll find out.

I’ve got a 5k and my first Ragnar coming up, plus a big conference for work. I’m a little nervous about those things, but I tend to look at them as new challenges, and they’re more exciting than anything. I know that I just have to prepare well, and it’s not really anything I haven’t done before. If anything, it makes the whole endeavor more satisfying knowing that I didn’t plan specifically for it to be as easy as possible. The way I see it, that’s not how you build a sustainable habit.

So, I guess that’s all there is to it for now. Today was easy peasy. We’ll see how long it takes for the crankies to set in!