Hello fellow eaters!

This was a night i like to call "whatever's in the fridge is what we will eat." There was no planning involved here it was nothing more than shear genius. So since eggplant doesn't have a lot of flavor by itself I decided to bread it and deep-fry it. I mean, come on, you can't go wrong with fried anything.

I used to be afraid of the eggplant, it was all big and purply and funny shaped. (That's what she said! sorry, I had to do it) However I have learned to get over my fear of veggies and if need be...say it with me now......"bread it and fry it!" Awww, good you are learning.

Rice. It is such a good thing to keep on hand. It cooks up easily and you don't need much else other than water to make it. Even us po' folks can afford that. I try to keep a few boxes of flavored rice on hand for the nights where I'm feeling "meh" about cooking.

"Rice a roni, the San Francisco treat." Well guess what...we like it in OK too. Oh and Zatarain's from New Orleans...hmmm, why are rice people so territorial? Don't people of all over like them some rice??

Another staple in my kitchen is frozen veggies. They are cheap and easy to heat up. Most of them nowadays do a steaming thing in the micro, easy squeezy. Of course we know that fresh is best but that doesn't always happen. Also haven't you noticed how fast the fresh stuff goes bad these days? It seems like I don't have enough time to eat it up.

So I used the left over chicken from last night's dinner (see the last post, duh!) and added some new sides to it.

Captain's Log- September 6th, 2009

Shake and Bake Chicken Tenderloins with Fried Eggplant and Rice

~ ok, look in the fridge and find whatever meat is left over and looks like it will rot if you don't eat it today! Grab that and inspect for mold spores, bad smell, funny colors and suspicious juices. If you don't see any then you are good to go!

~ for the fried eggplant I have pics for you. does that make you happy?

ummm, get an eggplant and cut it just like this or you will regret it.

~ then you need flour. I know this is confusing so I'll add a pic.

~ if you guessed that eggs were going to come next you are really good! in fact, you don't even need me.

~ also add bread crumbs to make it fun. ok, I hate when people say stuff like that, as if it wouldn't be "fun" if you didn't use bread crumbs.

~ then you HAVE to do it this way. no other way will work! LOL

take the eggplant and then dip it in the flour, then egg, then bread crumbs. Did you catch that? Flour, eggs, bread crumbs. I will be quizzing you at the end to see if you got the correct order down.

~ and for the rice....tonite the special is pilaf!

~ next you should grab the worst kind of oil that you can. make sure it has a lot of trans fatty acids, I find those taste the best, and pour a bunch in a big frying pan. Just in case of confusion

~ my hubs wanted his sides with the left over shake and bake chicken so this was his end result



~ I wanted to eat up the left over lasagne from our family party, so this is what I ended up with.

Don't you just love the artery clogging, fried veggies, all yellowish-brownish food that we eat! It might not be healthy, but it sure does taste good.