Fast Food can be Delicious!

Wait!  Don't run away!  I realize "fast food" conjures up something you had to drive to, wasting gas, sitting in line, spending a fortune in cash, letting someone else slap some pre-made (from who knows what), artery clogging, salt laden, greasy, sit-like-a-rock in your gut for days kind of "food".  I mean the "Oh crap, it's 5:00 & I forgot to take anything out of the freezer & don't know what I'm going to feed my family that isn't something I have to..." (See previous sentence.)

This has been happening quite a bit for me lately as I've spent much too much time at the table sewing & much less time concentrating on feeding my family.

I know, but I'm loving my sewing adventures and I'm getting my aprons ready for sale because I see them everywhere, but very few are really well made. Sorry - once again I'm off track.

Where was I?  Oh yeah!  Last night was no exception to this recent tendency.  I had been out running errands all day and by the time I got home, I really had no idea what to make my guys for dinner.  A quick scan of the freezer and I found one of my favorite, easy ideas.  Chicken tenders!  Now again, not the salty, pre-breaded, pre-cooked kind, but the cut of chicken.  The "tender" is actually the tenderloin.  The tenderloin refers to the psoas major, a muscle that runs along the central spine portion of all quadrupeds. It's the tenderest part of the animal because these muscles are used for posture rather than motion, so they aren't getting a huge workout.  The tenderloin on the chicken is cut from the meatiest part of the breast.  

Anywho, I try to stock up on this cut & keep it in the freezer for just these kind of situations.  They thaw really fast, cook really fast & are nice, juicy pieces of the breast.  I didn't take pictures last night, so you're just going to have to hang with me for a minute on this.  

I took the tenders out of the freezer, put a bowl in the sink large enough to hold them, filled it with water and let it sit for a half hour while I cleaned up my sewing mess.  

Once thawed, I put my grill pan on the stove, looped around a couple laps of olive oil, sprinkled in some dehydrated onion (yes, I'm STILL out of onion - UGH!) along with a mixture of kosher salt, pepper corns, & basil which I smashed together in my mortar & pestle. I let that sit so the onion could rehydrate just a bit on the lowest possible flame on my stove.  After a couple minutes, I cranked the heat up to a medium high flame so that the tenderloins sizzled when I added them to the pan. Ideally, I would have had these thawed overnight so I could put them in a storage bag with fresh lime, salt, pepper, cilantro, crushed garlic & a splash of tequila.  mmmm...SNAP OUT OF IT!  Remember, I wasn't remotely prepared for dinner. 

My next step was to give it a good smothering of lemon juice.  I know, another faux pau because it wasn't an actual lemon.  Fast food on the fly!  No time to shop for the missing items. I always have bottled juice I.C.E. Flip the chicken when it's browned on one side, being sure to scrape up the flavors that have started to carmelize on the bottom of the pan & rub the uncooked side around in it since we didn't take time to season the meat.

The chicken will be done to perfection in about 15 minutes. While it's cooking, rinse & spin dry your lettuce of choice, grab any veggies you have on hand, cheese, & nuts. This is what I had on hand...

When it's done, take some high quality olive oil & vinegar & drizzle it on top.  Boy, do I wish I had some Oliver's on hand!  That would be a magnificent way to top it all off.

Enjoy feeding the ones you love!  Thanks for reading!