Homemade Fast Food

Boneless, skinless chicken breast was on sale today, and as I contemplated the packages my mind conjured up pictures of good things to eat. One of the first things that popped into the vacancy of my Sunday afternoon brain was chicken strips at Mickey D's. The last time we ate there I had the three piece meal which came with fries and a soda and set me back $5.99. (Ouch!) So I decided that we'd have fast food at home tonight with our own chicken dinner.

I like fried chicken in smaller pieces (The better to add good breading, my dear!) so I used some handy-dandy kitchen shears to chunk it. I think the shears do a much better job than a knife, and it's easier to cut off any excess fat. The breading was pretty standard beginning with dredging the pieces in flour, then into whisked egg and milk, ending with a bread crumb mixture. Half Italian crumbs and half panko crumbs create a nice coating with a little crunch. Even though the bread crumbs are seasoned, the mixture still needs salt and pepper for good measure.

While my chicken tenders were frying to golden perfection, I whipped up some cole slaw - the world's easiest side dish when you use the pre-shredded mix. I'm pretty traditional with this dish, too, using mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar. I do like a sweeter vinegar than plain, so I usually use apple cider or pineapple vinegar. In addition, I like enough dressing to lightly coat all of the cabbage and carrots, but not drown it. Of course, this is a personal preference as some people I know think you should just whisper the dressing across the raw cabbage. (Of course, these people are often very thin and very unhappy.)

To finish off our fast food night I fried up some shoestring potatoes after the chicken was done and resting in the oven. I really like the crinkle cut fries best because they get brown on the outside and stay fluffy on the inside, but shoestrings were on sale really cheap a couple of weeks ago, so we need to eat up the current bag. Truthfully, they're much better in the fryer than in the oven. (What isn't, right?) And, of course, all French fries are good salty and piping hot, so that's the way we ate them.

When everything was finished, we loaded our extravagance onto a tray and headed for the theater where we watched The Importance of Being Ernest, an old Oscar Wild play turned into a period piece film. It was light and funny, the perfect companion for our homemade fast food feast. Who needs McDonald's anyway?