Day 17 - Chicken Nuggets & Whole Wheat Tortillas

I was trying to decide what to do with my chicken all day yesterday, and I finally decided to use some of it for chicken nuggets.  My son was asking for dinner and I had a vegetable soup in the crock pot that I knew he wouldn't touch, so I had to make something he would eat.  I was up for the challenge.

I cut the chicken into nugget-ish sized pieces and ran them under water, then rolled them in brown rice bread crumb, and finally I fried them lightly in coconut oil.

Umm, not to toot my own horn or anything, but these were kind of amazing.  I was surprised considering the simplicity of them, but the coconut oil added a seriously sweet taste.  In case you've ever wondered, here is the ingredient list for McDonald's Chicken Nuggets:

McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets:

Chicken, water, salt, modified corn starch, sodium phosphates, chicken broth powder (chicken broth, salt, and natural flavoring (chicken source)), seasoning (vegetable oil, extracts of rosemary, mono, di- and triglycerides, lecithin). Battered and breaded with water, enriched bleached wheat flour (niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, bleached wheat flour, modified corn starch, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, dried whey, corn starch. Batter set in vegetable shortening. Cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, (may contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated corn oil and/or partially hydrogenated canola oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or sunflower oil and/or corn oil). TBHQ and citric acid added to help preserve freshness. Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an anti-foaming agent. Source: Fast Food Facts: McDonald’s Ingredients List"

And the ingredients in my chicken nuggets?
Organic free-range chicken, medium grain brown rice,  and organic expeller pressed unrefined virgin coconut oil.  The end.  No novel neccessary.

When I first presented them to my son, I was really non-chalant about it.  "Oh, here you go, here's some chicken nuggets."  And he was totally not impressed.  I could read his mind: THESE ARE NOT SHAPED LIKE DINOSAURS.  He actually started crying.  "Are these HOME MADE?  I don't want home made chicken nuggets, I want chicken nuggets out of a bag from the freezer!"  Waaah.  Oh my gosh, my mom made wholesome, nutritious chicken nuggets, the world is ENDING!

I just walked away.  I didn't want to deal with it.  And about 15 minutes later, he came running into my bedroom, "Mom! Mom! Those chicken nuggets were SO yummy, I want more!"

Of course I made him more!  Ah-hah!  Success!  My child ate dinner!

And my daughter, for lunch yesterday, ate two bowls of THIS (steamed & pureed with Sunday's chicken broth):

Nutritionally speaking, it was a day full of win.

This morning, I made some whole wheat waffles.  My son was pretty excited about this for some reason.  He was laughing, "It's neat you can make those like that instead of the one's in the freezer." - ugh, have I really been relying on boxed foods so much, my kid is completely out of touch with cooking from scratch?  He gobbled down 2 waffles and said he liked them.

Last night before I went to bed, I had set some pinto beans in a bowl to soak overnight.  I cooked them late this morning and whipped up some whole wheat tortillas to make bean burritos for lunch.

The tortillas really are a breeze.  I follow this recipe, but I used coconut oil in the dough and coated the pan lightly with sesame oil.

Although my son isn't a fan of these & my husband is still adjusting to the taste of whole wheat rather than white, I personally find these extremely delicious.  I even like to snack on them plain.

While I was cooking the tortillas, I was simutaniously making another attempt at yogurt.  I had half a gallon of 2-week old raw milk in the fridge and I needed something to do with it.  Raw milk doesn't go bad the way pasteurized milk from the store goes bad.  Real milk just sours.  It's called clabbering and it means the good bacteria in the milk ate the lactose (milk sugar).  It's still perfectly fine and healthy to consume.  The pasteurized milk that you get at the grocery store goes bad and has to be dumped down the drain, it's putrid and can make you sick because it's full of pathogenic bacteria (insert sad face).  But real milk fresh from a happy, healthy, pastured cow that has soured isn't bad.  There are still plenty of uses for clabbered milk.  I personally can't stomach sour milk (or buttermilk, or plain yogurt) without some flavor, so I started soaking some flour for pancakes tomorrow and used the rest for another attempt at making yogurt.  I'm not too confident, but we'll find out tomorrow if it worked this time or not!