Homemade Chicken Nuggets

Yes, they're gluten-free and, yes, they taste great!!

I based my recipe off of this fantastic recipe here, but I didn't have any regular gluten-free flour mix, so I decide to be inventive.

Preheat your oven at 450F.

I took four frozen chicken breasts and partially thawed them (I find still-slightly-frozen-chicken easier to chop up). After that, I cut them into just slightly-smaller-than-normal sizes for nuggets (think Chick-Fil-A sized nuggets).

In a large, Ziploc plastic bag, I combined equal parts chickpea flour and Parmesan cheese along with a combination of paprika, salt, pepper and cayenne. In all honesty, I added a little too much cayenne, but they're delicious. If you're not good with spicy, dial down or eliminate the cayenne all together.

Put the chicken in the plastic bag (if you're doing a lot like I was, this will have to be done in batches), seal the bag, and shake, coating all the pieces with the cheesy goodness.  After that, I spread them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and baked them for 15 minutes, flipped them and then backed for another seven.

The results? Spicy, super-moist, and really easy homemade chicken nuggets! This made enough for several meals and so far it looks like it reheats really well.

In hindsight: I had run out of parchment paper and foil, and that would've saved me a lot of trouble with the clean-up afterward.

Sunday Family Dinner

I come from a big Italian family. And when I say Italian, I mean Italian. The two most important things in this world for this family seem to be family and food (no big argument there from me).  As such, family dinners every Sunday are a big deal. A really big deal.

They're also a really big gluten-fest filled with booby traps and delicious, but deadly pitfalls. I usually end up making something for my self on the side and just having to look longingly at the pasta, meatballs, and Nonna's amazing homemade sauce. And then I got a big surprise this morning. Grandma (Nonna) informed that not only had she picked up gluten-free penne rigata (by Pasta Si) and even made sure that she had a gluten-free sauce on hand (Lidia's Marinara). While it still isn't Nonna's homemade sauce and meatballs, it means the world that she would think of me and go out of her way to make sure I felt included --and of, course, well-fed because that is the main love language of Italian grandmas everyone.

Along with this, I've thrown together a roast chicken piccata based on this recipe. It's in the oven now and it smells delicious!

The Wonders of Chickpea Flour

Okay, so it isn't so much "wonders" as it is just good. I picked up some chickpea (a.k.a. ceci, gram, or garbanzo) flour at my local Italian imports store this weekend to see what I could do with it. I'd used regular canned chickpeas before in cookies (yes, cookies!), but never tried the actual flour. It was time to remedy that situation.

The chickpea flour was incredibly cheap. $2.50/pound is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you're used to seeing alternative flours for up to $11/pound (almond flour, anyone?)!

I brought it home and immediately started searching for recipes. The first one I found was for a chickpea pancake. On further investigation, it was a thin crepe-style pancake made of just chickpea flour, water, and a pinch of salt. Sounded easy enough. So, I went to work.

I decided to use my 'pancake' as more of a tortilla and set about thinking of fillings. As I live alone, keeping fresh produce from going bad is quite a chore in my house. Because of this, I tend to rely on a lot of frozen veggies. I sauteed some frozen broccoli with garlic for the filling, but was then hit with inspiration.

I had been craving fried chicken for months now. What better to try with my new flour? I ended up mixing equal parts of chickpea flour and Parmesan cheese in with some herbs and a little salt and pepper and then pan-frying the chicken. And it worked! It actually tasted good. Color me surprised.

So, my 'tortilla' was filled with garlic broccoli and fried chicken. It was delicious. But way too filling. One pancake was huge and so dense, it probably could've served for two meals.

Yay, fried chicken!

It tasted a lot better than it looks, trust me!