A Wife Loved Like The Church

Healthy fried chicken? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Not when you oven fry it!

In an effort to make a staple comfort food healthy, I decided to oven fry our chicken. Essentially, you batter the chicken like normal, but instead of frying it in oil, you bake it. Yes, I am sure some good ole’ Southern mama is about ready to say “bless your heart” as she shakes her head at me.

First, take your raw chicken and beat it. You heard me right. Beat it. You want to tenderize the chicken to ensure it cooks through. This is especially true when you fry it.

Whisk eggs in a bowl.  A trick my mom taught me is to add milk to your eggs to make the mixture go further.

Dip chicken in egg mixture.

Spread flour on a flat surface for coating chicken. I added wheat germ (for some bonus “health”) and cayenne pepper (for a kick) to my flour.

Throughly coat chicken on both sides.

Place chicken on a pan and cook at 350* for 20 minutes per side (total of 40 minutes).

The finished product:

To be honest, the breading didn’t turn out quite how I’d like. A lot of it stayed on the pan, and the chicken didn’t really have a “fried” look. Everyone cheerfully ate it and the cayenne pepper was a nice touch. However, I’m not sold on oven frying over oil frying. Mostly because, I just love fried chicken.

I served this meal with some mashed potatoes, green beans and my favorite easy biscuits. While it’s a bit time consuming (and even more so if you fry the chicken) it’s a pretty simple recipe and a “must” for every good Southern woman.

More pictures of my little helpers. I’m not quite sure why Julia’s telling Hannah to “be quiet”. Maybe because Hannah kept laughing hysterically at her.

And this is what Hannah does when I try pushing her past her 3-hour nursing limit. She tries eating anything she can grab.

I must say that I’ve been known to be a politically charged person. Being that I am very opinionated, the two go hand in hand. But, if by the title of my post you were hoping for my opinion on this year’s election and how I view the Iraqi war, I’m sorry to say you will be disappointed.

However, if you were hoping for something a little more enjoyable, then I have good news.

I recently got Grandma’s Wartime Kitchen: World War II and the Way We Cooked from the library. The idea behind the cookbook is to show you how our grandmothers cooked while having their food rationed. I must say I am loving this book!

I just made Swedish Meatballs last week that were an absolute hit. All of the recipes call for items that you most likely already have tucked away in your pantry or fridge, making dinner time just that much easier.

Now, I will let you know, these recipes aren’t necessarily “health friendly”, given that the desserts call for corn syrup and most of the dinners call for vegetable shortening. However, you can easily replace these items with olive oil, honey, agave or such. Mainly, the idea is to cook with what you have, use all your resources and be mindful of what you eat.

While I enjoy going through different cook books each month, I might be persuaded to make this one a permanent item. It’s pretty much the greatest.

Swedish Meatballs

1 pound ground beef
1 cup day-old bread crumbs (about 3 slices) – *Just process the bread to make the crumbs
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable shortening – *I used olive oil
1 1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350*F.
Combine ground beef, bread, egg, onion, 1/4 teaspoon salt, allspice and pepper. Shape mixture into 24 meatballs.
Heat shortening in a 3-quart Dutch oven. Add meatballs and saute until brown on all sides; remove to bowl. Add 1 cup milk to the Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Stir remaining milk and flour together, add to boiling milk mixture along with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Return meatballs to sauce. Cover and bake 30 minutes. Serve from Dutch oven.

Some variations that I made: I don’t have a Dutch oven, so I just browned the meat in a regular pan. Then I moved them to a small baking dish. I made the sauce in the pan I used for the meat, then poured it over top the meatballs, covered with foil and baked.