Happy New Year, fellow CvilleBuzzers! Hope you all had a great Christmas and holiday season. From the looks of most of our waistlines, it looks like we all ate well! Too well, most likely, which means it’s time to shed a few pounds. Losing a little weight, by the way, does not necessarily mean a diet. It means watching what you eat and using some common sense.
A few years ago, I had gained so much weight, I considered Sumo wrestling as a new career. Dr. Carey, my Endocrinologist, suggested that instead of a crash diet, I buy a good set of bathroom scales, record my weight and write it down. Every day. What ensued was that I came to know which foods caused gain or loss and what I could eat without gaining. I had no particular diet. I made up the rules and I lost nearly 50 pounds. In the latter part of last year, I gained about 10 pounds back and now it’s time to lose that excess weight
This new column in CvilleBuzz, “A Losing Proposition”, will be designed to highlight recipes and dishes that can help in weight loss, yet taste good.
My experience is that if you go on a lettuce and carrot diet, you’ll lose weight, but eventually say, “To hell with this. I want real food.” Then you’re back to square one. But if food tastes good and you can eat what you want within reason, it’s much easier to lose weight and keep it off.
My first recipe for “A Losing Proposition” is Fried Chicken. That’s right. Fried Chicken, and here’s how.
First, we’re going to oven fry the chicken and keep the grease and iron skillet in the pantry. But this oven-fried chicken is a close second to Kentucky Fried and it begins with an entire split chicken breast, bone-in, skin on. The large size of the breast, the bone and skin all help in keeping the breast moist when cooking and the skin adds much needed flavor. A hot oven will give the chicken extra crispiness.
Generally, the breast portions will be packed in pairs without the wing sections. I bought a pack of two and it was like three bucks, and we got two meals out of it. A great value.
Oven Fried Chicken Breasts
Two large breast portions (bone in, skin on)
1 C Panko crumbs
1/2 t garlic powder
½ t coarse ground pepper
1 t kosher salt
Rinse the breasts and pat dry. In one bowl, pour a cup of milk and whisk in an egg. In a separate bowl, put a cup of Panko crumbs, a half-teaspoon of garlic powder, a half-teaspoon of pepper, and some kosher salt to taste. Be generous with the black pepper, by the way. Dip the breasts in the wash, then in the crumb mixture with skin side down. Press thoroughly until the chicken is coated. Flip the breast and repeat the process.
Place the chicken on parchment paper and bake in a 400-degree oven for about 40 minutes, or until juices run clear. After cooking, we split each breast and ate only a half piece each. It was quite filling, tender, moist and tasty. And both Nancy and I lost weight the next morning. It was “A Losing Proposition.”
(Please share some of your recipes that taste good and help lose weight)