Theola's yummy chicken fingers

When I started this blog I wanted to also include some cheap, easy, and somewhat nutritious recipes. This first one comes courtesy of my friend Theola. She made this for us a few months back when we were over at her family's house for dinner. They were yummy!

She told me the recipe came from The Joy of Cooking. When I make it I "adapt" it from there, meaning I use it as a basis. The cost of this dinner which fed the three of us and had left overs was under (well under actually) $8. As with all my recipes, the cost factor DOES NOT INCLUDE the price of standard staples such as flour, spices, oil, etc. These are things most people have in their homes to begin with.

The time-prep factor is about an hour, but its not a straight hour, the beauty of this recipe is you can stop and start up.

Ingredients
1.5lbs+ of boneless/skinless chicken breast -- $4 (bought on sale a few weeks back at Magruders when it was $2.49/lb)
1 cup flour
1 cup plain bread crumbs
1 cup corn meal
Spices of your choice, eyeball (this past weekend I used Red Pepper, Old Bay, Black Pepper and Salt) I would recommend starting off with a Tablespoon of whatever your favorite is to start, and go up or down from there.
2 cups vegetable oil (reused from previous dinners)
1 egg
1 cup of milk
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil.

In medium size bowl mix egg, milk and olive oil. Set aside.
In large bowl, mix flour, bread crumbs, corn meal and spices. Set aside.

Heat veggie oil in a pot. The oil should be at least two inches deep, preferably three. It took me about 15 mins to get oil to temp I wanted it when I put it on 7.

Cut chicken breasts in small pieces. Soak in milk mixture and then dip in bread crumbs et all and make sure completely covered. WHen oil is hot enough, place no more than 3 pieces in and let cook for 8-10 mins. You will know if the oil is hot enough if it starts to bubble when you put chicken in. You remove the chicken with a strainer spoon, and place on newspaper to absorb the oil.

While chicken is cooking, I like to get the next pieces ready, so have a few pieces soaking in milk and a few pieces that have already been soaking in the bread crumb mixture.

Repeat.

This dinner fed the three of us and we had leftovers. Its maybe not the healthiest of choices, although we did have Rice-A-Roni (which was $1 thanks to my Harris Teeter shopping trip a few weeks back) and Spinich (from Trader Joe's). It was part of a larger bag, not sure of price. Will find out next time and update.

Bottom line, it was yummy and not terribly bad for us (especially if you blat the chicken when you take it out of oil with paper towels).

Enjoy!