How about some Chicken Tenders

Happy Sunday Funday!

I wasn't in the kitchen much this weekend becuase my parents were in town and well...we were doing home improvement projects not creating deliciousness.  Although my one backyard project will help to make the deliciousness that much more enjoyable come fall!  Before I walk you through one of the best/easiest chicken tender recipes I will show you the newest edition to the backyard sanctuary..  Wine bottle tiki torches!!!  THANK YOU PINTEREST!!!  It is kind of hard to tell from the picture but we have hung 6 of these bad boys off the fence - again have I told you how amazing my dad is?  I showed him the picture - we went to the store and he made my vision come true!  Love that man!

I can't wait for it to cool down just a bit at night so that when I get home from work I will be able to light these up - throw something on the grill - fill a wine glass and relax!

I am not just a one trick pony either as I have said before I prefer to wear my apron but....every once in a while I will throw on that tool belt.  Before mom and dad arrived, I painted two of the walls in my house, bought a new bed, changed out some blinds and hung a few other things!  Here were the looks of surprise when they arrived

Alrighty enough about this crap lets get cookin'

So the working out thing is still a bit of a miss right now, I unfortunately had other priorities with getting the house ready so I made a ton of excuses.  It is going to happen though - things finally feel like they are falling into place.  But even though I may not be working out - that is not stopping me from trying to eat healthy!

I am trying to find things that will curb the want for crappy and well...I think that I may have just found it!  Here is the best recipe that I have found so far for baked chicken tenders!

First things first I actually buy my chicken tenders frozen and then put about 3 or 4 in their own ziplock freezer bag.  This way I can just pull a few out at a time to thaw and not have to worry about the entire bag getting freezer burnt from opening and closing it!  So the night before I made this recipe I pulled out one of my bags and put it in the fridge to thaw over night.

When I got home from work I preheated the oven and pulled the chicken out to let it get to room temperature.  Then I went got the pups out and changed into my cookin clothes!

I then started getting things ready..up first the wet mixture - I found this part to be very interesting as it was milk, egg and Sriracha.  This is the first time that I have ever used the sriracha at this point in a recipe    

Then I got the breadding mixture ready - I put all of the spices in with the panko bread crumbs

I then put the tenders in the wet mix and then promptly in the bag and did a little dance - it may or may not have been to Jackson 5!  Making sure that every tender was fully covered in the seasoning.  I then laid each one out on my cookie cooling rack on the cookie sheet and got them ready for the cooker!  

***Side note - if you are not going to use all of the tenders the recipe called for then you can totally cut the panko mix in half.  I wasted a lot of panko but wanted to be sure that everything was covered.***

I also took my olive oil sprayer and sprayed the top of each tender before putting it in the oven.  The recipe does not call for them to be flipped at the half way mark but I did and sprayed the opposite side for maximum crunch!

While they were cookin' I got the dipping sauce ready this was so not complicated - just follow the directions on this one people!!!

Once that was done I started getting my plate ready so that when the tenders were done I could eat - chunky monkey was hungry!  

First part of the plate - left over taco shells

Up next...a little black bean spread, some chipotle drizzle and my avocado salsa

This is what the tenders looked like coming out of the oven

Now lets add some lettuce and the tenders to the plate and ENJOY!!!

I cannot tell a lie these were so good that well I am just glad that I only made 3 and a tiny one (it was so not a real tender)  because had I made more I know for certain that I would not have been able to restrain myself from enjoying them all!

Here is the original recipe

http://www.ohsweetbasil.com/tex-mex-chicken-tenders-garlicky-avocado-dipping-sauce.html

This week I will be doing a few different things  - so stay tuned there could be multiple recipes in one day!

I hope that you have all had a great weekend...get cookin this week would ya!