Chicken Crunch

I made a wonderfully delicious meal last night, all of it thanks to My Tribute to the Dynes Family Cook Book.  I owe another thank you to Scott and Angela for including this chicken recipe and my sister Nancy and her husband Jeremy for providing the sides. Addie obviously agreed seeing as how she said "yum" every time she put another bite in her mouth.  Next time, I'll try a little harder to work on its appearance since the pictures don't do the chicken's tastiness justice.

So I admit not everyone enjoyed this meal- Avery was pretty difficult, but that's a whole other story that I'll probably vent about in a later blog.

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INGREDIENTS:
THE CHICKEN:

• 8 skinless, boneless chicken breasts OR 10 skinless, boneless thighs (About 2 lbs)

THE "SAUCE":

• 1 (8 oz.) carton light dairy sour cream (Optional- I used 4 oz. for Avery and Keith's chicken, but excluded it from my and Addie's portions to keep ours dairy free)
• 2 TBSP lemon or lime juice
• 1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce (read the ingredients to be sure it's gluten / wheat free)
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1/2 tsp. celery salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

THE STUFFING MIX:
If not worried about avoiding allergens, you could keep it simple and use

• 1 (8 oz.) pkg. herb-seasoned stuffing mix, coarsely crunched (about 2 cups) 

I, of course, don't have that luxury and used the following to create my "stuffing" mix:

• 1 cup almonds, finely grounded in the food processor
• 1 small celery stalk, coarsely chopped and then grounded with the almonds in the processor
• 1/2 cup brown rice crumbs
• 1/2 TBSP lemon pepper
• 1/2 TBSP Italian seasoning

FINAL TOPPING:

• Olive Oil (Optional)

THE SIDES: (again thanks to Nancy and Jeremy)

• Basic Pilaf
• Baked Beans

DIRECTIONS:

SUMMARY:  Make the sauce and stuffing mix - Preheat the oven while dipping the chicken - Bake the chicken - Cook the sides

STEP ONE- THE SAUCE AND THE STUFFING MIX:
Combine all of the sauce ingredients EXCEPT the sour cream if going dairy free in a medium sized bowl. (I added it in later during Step Two).  Mix together my crunchy stuffing ingredients if using that instead of the store-bought stuffing mix.  Lay out a large piece of wax paper and spread out which ever stuffing mix you're using evenly.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lay out aluminim foil and/or spray cooking spray on 1 or 2 large, shallow baking dishes (I used 2 since the recipe suggested that the chicken will be crunchier if you keep the chicken pieces from touching each other ).

STEP TWO- THE DIPPING:
One by one, dip the chicken in the sauce and then place on the stuffing mix.  Toss the stuffing mix on top of the piece of chicken, shake it gently, and place on the baking dish.  Re-spread the stuffing mix evenly for the next piece.

I followed this process for the first 4 thighs and then stirred in the sour cream to the sauce and continued the process for Keith and Avery's chalked full of tasty dairy portions.

Drizzle all the pieces with olive oil (optional) and bake for 25 minutes.

STEP THREE- THE SIDES:
I then got Nancy's Baked Beans simmering on the stove and finished off by cooking Nancy's Basic Pilaf.

And the nice thing about this recipe is that I really didn't have to go out of my way to make anything extra for the girls other than heat up a few green beans:

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmmmmm.  Perhaps you won't find this one as wonderful as me...I do admit I will probably change up my stuffing mix a bit to see if I can get it a little more crunchy, in honor of the recipe's name.  But if you don't agree with me...so be it... I say to-may-toe, you say to-maaa-toe.  (Actually that's a pretty outdated cliche- who out there actually says to-maaa-toe??)