#1: Coconut Chicken Nuggets

So this is my first post. I'm very new to blogging, so that in itself will be interesting, or shall I say "Pinteresting" bahahaha!

Ok, so my goal is to do a Pinterest project, make a Pinterest recipe or create a Pinterest-worthy project everyday (or close to everyday, as some projects may take more than one) for the next year. I have a 4 month old son, so we'll see how it goes, but it'll force me to have my "Mommy Time" everyday.

Here goes, my first project, here's the link to the pin:

http://stiritup.me/?p=2443

This is a recipe for Coconut Chicken Nuggets, sounded delicious and simple, but with difficult ingredients. It was clearly created by the "Whole Foods kind of girl," I'm more of a "Giant Eagle what can I get with all these coupons kind of girl." So below is the original recipe, then underneath each ingredient or step is what I actually did. I live in an area that I don't have access to some of these stores, and to purchase at a local store would leave us eating chicken nuggets that cost us as much as Filet Mignon.

1.5 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces I used 1lb of thin cut chicken tenders, I buy the Nature's Basket at Giant Eagle to stay away from the hormones and I think it just tastes better, but overall, chicken is chicken. 1 free range egg I used a brown egg, because they're cheap and delicious and we have an amish community that they're easily accessible, but again, an egg is an egg. 1/2 cup almond meal/flour (Almond meal from TJ’s). Or, use coconut flour if allergies I don't even know what the heck this is (the store), or where to get it here in the real world, so I used regular old Gold Medal flour and it worked just fine. 1/4 cup shredded coconut (from Whole Foods. Not the light.) Psht! Who needs Whole Foods! Go to the baking aisle at the regular old grocery store and buy some stupid coconut. Geez! 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion dried This I get at a little local bulk foods store that I bought for another recipe a while ago so I just happened to have it. Had I not had it I would've just used onion salt, or powder, or some other "oniony spice" in my cabinet, no big deal. 1 tsp salt and a dash of pepper 4 tbsp coconut oil Uhh, no! Again, where the heck do you even get this stuff? And I'm going to use it for just this one recipe, and then what? So I used Olive Oil because I love Olive Oil!!

1. Wash and cut chicken into bite-sized pieces and set aside. 2.  Mix in a large bag all of the ingredients except for the chicken and egg and set aside. 3.  Now beat the egg and mix it with the chicken. 4.  Add the chicken (and egg) to the plastic bag and shake until the chicken is completely covered.  Make sure to hold on to the top so it doesn’t open up.

5.  In a large sauce pan, heat on medium high heat.  Add 2 tbsp coconut oil and add chicken in. 6.  Continuously stir until the chicken starts to brown.  As it cooks, the coconut oil will be soaked up by the chicken so add another 2 tbsp when the pan starts to get dry.  Add more if needed, but the tricky part here is you don’t want so much oil the nuggets get soggy, and not too little where they can’t fry up nicely so just keep an eye on it. I pretty much did all the steps above, except I put all the oil in at once. When the oil starts to really cook and make the meat dark they're too done and don't have as good of a flavor, so you're better off to get it all in the skillet in one shot and get it cooked. I didn't get a picture of this delicious meal, but I didn't get mine quite as brown and crispy as the original Pin, like I mentioned above, the ones that were more brown didn't taste as good and started to get a little too brown. Might have been the difference in the oil, but who knows.  This was a very easy recipe as long as you have the ingredients. I try to tailor my recipes so that I have all the ingredients and luckily Coconut is something I consider a staple in my pantry. Delicious, easy and the husband even liked it. Pinterest mission accomplished. Tomorrow: Homemade laundry soap, less appetizing, more Pinteresting (here I go again with my terrible jokes).