Chopped is back!!! After a very, very long hiatus for the baseball and soccer seasons when we were busy almost every Sunday afternoon/evening, we now have time to make our Chopped meal on Sunday nights. There has been one small change. I no longer get a week to plan the meal - I get less than 24 hours! Mike felt it was too easy, and well, maybe it was. So, now Mike and Jonathan make a special trip to a local grocery store and come home with two ingredients that I have to use in a meal the following night.
This is actually our third week of Chopped this fall. I've just been super busy and wasn't able to post about our first two meals. The first week, the ingredients were pumpkin seeds and avocado. The second week, the ingredients were blue cheese and cactus leaves. Yes, cactus. I bread and fried it like you would for onion rings. Benjamin liked it and it was okay with a lot of salt and ketchup. But, I couldn't eat more than a few bites because I couldn't get over the fact that it was cactus. Thus, the second new rule. Mike MUST pick out foods that we will eat. I'm not doing this to win $10,000 like they are on TV so I at least get to eat foods I like. He did better this week.
So, now on to this week. First, a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch does not last a long time in our house. Everyone loves it so just making sure there was enough left for the meal on Sunday was a challenge. The box was about half gone by Sunday afternoon. But, there was plenty to make my Cinnamon Fried Chicken. I found this recipe where the breading for the chicken contained sugar, cinnamon and flour. Well, that is what the cereal is made out of so I just blended it until it was in find crumbs, added a few other spices, and used this for the breading of my fried chicken. I then fried it up like you would any other fried chicken recipe.
It was great! While you couldn't taste the cinnamon, the chicken definitely had a sweet taste and it was really good. However, I would have to say the concord grape raspberry biscuits that I made with the juice were better :)
I found a recipe for orange biscuits and just replaced all the orange juice with the V-Fusion juice. Benjamin did most of the mixing of the dough until it was time to roll it out and cut the biscuits. That is when I thought I was going to experience my first Chopped failure. The dough was so gooey. I added flour and more flour and it still was gooey. There was no way I could roll out the dough to cut the biscuits. I went over the recipe with Benjamin and he verified that he included all ingredients - and the right measurements of each. So, I went to plan B and made drop biscuits instead. I ended up baking them for about twice as long as the recipe indicated. Not sure what happened, but they ended up turning out just fine.
Then, we added the best part - the concord grape raspberry glaze. Yummy!!!!! Benjamin and I were eating it by the spoonful plain because it was so good and addicting. We both have a serious sweet tooth.
We also made a very good roasted veggie and pasta salad as a side dish. Benjamin is definitely improving on his knife skills. The best part was when he was chopping the onions and Mike bet him $1 if he'd eat a piece of onion raw. Benjamin does not like onions. I suggested to Benjamin that he do it for $5 which Mike agreed to. So, he did it!!!!
He's still waiting for his dad to pay up :) The meal was a lot of work, took way longer than I anticipated, and dirtied almost every pan/blow/utensil in the house, but it was a success.
Benjamin and I did it again. So, if you are ever out of flour and feel like fried chicken, check your pantry for Cinnamon Toast Crunch because it works just as well :)
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