First attempt at chick-fil-a inspired chicken...

One thing that I'm working on doing is creating recipes. I've always been jealous of the people who can just grab a bunch of things out of the fridge, throw it in a frying pan or in the oven, and come out with something absolutely delicious because I've never felt I can do that. I've been stuck on the things that I know I can cook, those things being eggs, any way you want them, pasta (mainly easy stovetop macaroni and cheese), and bread. Those are the things my parents taught me how to make, and things that I've been cooking since I was a kid, however I'm now working on branching out.

On that note, here's what inspired me to try my hand at just throwing something together. I love Chick-Fil-A, it's really the only fast food I ever eat, but unfortunately, since my gallbladder surgery I'm afraid to eat it because it was the only thing before the surgery that actually made the pain unbearable, so I decided to try to make my own imitation. It was pretty good, but it definitely needs some more experimentation. I kept it pretty simple this time because I wasn't sure how well it would come out and now I have something to build on.




Here's what I did:

I took one large chicken breast (I thought it was 2 in 1 package when I thawed it, thankfully the one was big enough for both of us) and marinated it in Claussen kosher dill pickle juice overnight.
I put panko bread crumbs, with some onion powder and garlic powder, rolled the chicken in the mix to coat it. Then placed the chicken in aluminum foil and baked it at 350 for about 50 minutes.

Really, really simple, and really good, but next time I think I'm going to try regular bread crumbs. I also think I'm going to at least add some smoked paprika, and maybe a bit of white pepper to give it a bit more flavor. I would say that marinating the chicken in pickle juice gives it a good and different flavor.