Create Your Own “Restaurant” Fun
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My kids like to eat out, but…
a) the food is usually, almost always, mostly bad for you.
b) my three year old eats a lot, my five year old eats as much as I do, my seven year old and ten year old eat as much as their Daddy, and…
c) have you seen how much their Daddy eats?
d) do you know how much it costs at a restaurant to feed a family of six who eat like five adults?
Therefore, I often try to make food fun at home, especially on Friday nights, for our family.
One of our favorite things to have is my Homemade Chicken Nuggets and French Fries. The kids love it, request it and are joyful over it when they know I’m making it.
I watch for Smart Chicken boneless/skinless breasts to go on sale (that’s the only brand of chicken I feel mostly okay about buying) and I stock up. I found it for $2.29/lb the other day which was great for Smart Chicken!
Potatoes are super cheap and we have about 40 pounds still in storage from our garden last summer (yea!).
So, here’s the recipe for my Homemade Chicken Nuggets and French Fries.
Homemade Chicken Nuggets
(My side note: Kids may have a harder time getting used to these chicken nuggets because they are actually made of, well, chicken. Give them a try though – my kids LOVE them and cheer when I’m making them! Every adult I’ve fed them to LOVE them as well.)
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs
½ cup unbleached white flour
Sea salt
½ cup oil (I use palm kernel oil)
Cut the chicken into small nugget sized pieces and place in a bowl. Stir chicken around in the flour to coat. Heat oil in skillet. Cook chicken in hot oil for about seven minutes on each side. Salt liberally while cooking.
French Fries
6-8 medium potatoes
1 cup oil – give or take (again, I use palm kernel oil)
Sea salt
Scrub potatoes well and cut into thin french fries, any length you like. Heat 1/2 cup oil in skillet. Place half the potatoes in the oil and cook for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are tender, yet crispy, stirring then around occasionally. Salt well. Repeat process for remaining potatoes. (I keep the first batch warm in a 200 degree oven while I cook the second batch.)
So there you have it! If I’m really feeling clever, I’ll do one of the following for the meal:
1) Wrap a few nuggets and a few fries in parchment paper and place them in a lunch sack for each of my boys. Sometimes, I’ll even throw in a little trinket if I have them around. Then the kids feel like they are getting a kid’s meal at a restaurant! They love it!
2) Give each of the boys some coins and have them sit at the table with a menu to order from. They usually order the “special” (since that’s all Mama’s Kitchen is offering!) and have to pay for it with their coins. It’s super fun and a good lesson in restaurant behavior and money.
If I’m not feeling clever (or if I have no energy left for much except eating), I just throw a plate of the nuggets and a plate of the fries on the table and we all just dig in. Hey, that’s fun too.
Find a fun Personal Pizza Night recipe here.
There is a cool website called topsecretrecipes.com- it has all kinds of restaurant “cloned” recipes. A lot of them are free, some you pay for. They even have candy bar and snack recipes. I really like the ones I’ve tried, like Arby’s sauce & Horsey Sauce and Taco Bell sauce & Taco Bell Surpreme Burritos. I am looking forward to trying Popeye’s Red Beans & Rice & Buttermilk Biscuit recipes- those are my favorite and the closest Popeye’s (or Taco Bell or Arbys) restaurant is an hour away…
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Crystal Reply:
September 19th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Chicken nuggets turned out great i did make a few minor changes – i used bread crumbs instead because the flour like to stick to my frying pan despite oil and i used regular salt but they turned out great and my 4 1/2 yr old ate her entire plate which is FANTASTIC even our baby (13 months old) is enjoying them however our 7 1/2 yr old is way to picky and will not eat anything that is not pre-packaged THANKS TO GRANDMA!!!
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Great post! I actually was planning to make your Chicken nuggets tonight – how funny is that?
One question – what do I do if I don’t have sea salt? And if I were to get some before tonight, how much do I add to the flour? Or is the sea salt for salting while the chicken is cooking?
Ok, that was more than one question!
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You can probably find sea salt at the regular grocery store (I use Redmonds RealSalt), but I usually order it from my coop. If you can’t find it, just use regular salt.
I salt the nuggets as I cook them.
Hope yours turn out yummy!
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This sounds yummy! I’ll have to try it with my girls sometime.
Thanks for stopping by my blog!
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Yum! Well, I have to say I sympathize regarding restaurants. We go out maybe 2 or 3 times a year as a family because it costs so much. Even with the kids pitching in (the ‘kids’ are 17, 21, 23 and 25, btw–you can imagine what they eat), it still runs very high. So eating out is only for the most special occasions.
I did something recently that was so much fun. I made breakfast for dinner. Bacon, eggs and pancakes. It was just like eating out at IHOP! The kids thought it was a great idea. I wish I’d done it years ago.
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Just tried these, Laura, and they were great! I added some onion and garlic powder to the flour to add flavor to the breading, and I liked how they turned out. Thanks for the recipe!
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I would love to do this the next time I have company.
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if you grind up the chicken in a processor and then shape them into nuggets they turn out like mcdonalds nuggets. i dont have any kids but my 28 year old bf sure likes them :)
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Just went to the top secret recipes site, and my computer wouldn’t allow it to open because it is suspect for malware being put onto your computer without your consent. Just to let you all know.
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