Dance Party Chicken Nuggets from What a Good Eater!

My kids and I had the privilege of testing a recipe out of the new digital cookbook called What a Good Eater by Alessandra Macaluso and Amy Godiwalla. This cookbook is as healthy as it is beautiful. It’s entire purpose is to expose youngsters to the magic of nutritional herbs and spices, while challenging them to try new healthy dishes to enhance their little palates. The first thing that caught my eye about the book was that they had age recommendations next to each recipe. I love this because I don’t know about you, but I forget what each kiddo is able to eat at certain ages. That darn mom brain.

The cookbook is organized by ages and has many homemade baby food puree options and ends with veggie dip and slow cooker chicken. We chose the recipe for the Dance Party Chicken Nuggets. My kids have fruits and veggies at every meal; I make homemade dinners at least five out of the seven days of the week; but I definitely feel like I phone it in when I serve frozen chicken nuggets. This has been bothering me for a long time, so I couldn’t wait to try this recipe.

You Have the Ingredients

The ingredients for these nuggets are in your pantry and refrigerator right now. How great is that? Bread crumbs may be the only item you’d have to buy. We combined bread crumbs with other ingredients in a ziplock back. That was our first dance party. We sealed the bag, turned on some tunes and shook up the mixture. I recommend Shake it Off by Taylor Swift or The Twist by Chubby Checker for this section. Both will get the job done. Once we combined those, I got the chicken, took out the mallet, and got out some aggression thinning the chicken breasts so that I could cut them into nugget appropriate sizes. While I was doing that, my five-year old was whisking the milk and eggs to get them ready for the chicken. We dumped all of the chicken in the milk/egg mixture, spooned up the chicken into our bread crumb concoction and had another dance party.

Short Cook Time

The prep time was so reasonable, and the dance party part was fun. The best part of all  was that it didn’t take long to cook. Ten minutes on one side. We flipped our nuggets for five more minutes on the other side. We started this on a weekend, but if I began at 5 pm on a weeknight, we would be eating by 5:45.

Serving Time

All three of my kids ages 5, 8, and 11 enjoyed these nuggets with ketchup. I can see how BBQ or honey mustard would also be good condiments to use. For myself, I cut the nuggets up in a salad with red peppers, cucumbers, romaine, tomatoes, and lite balsamic dressing. It was “to die for” in a salad. We had two baggies left over after the four of us devoured our nuggets. We enjoyed them throughout the week to follow. My eight year old said, “These are so good, mom. I can’t tell the difference between these and the ones we usually have. Well, except these have more taste.” He’s pretty picky, so this is an incredible compliment!

Overall

Friends. This recipe is so great. The cookbook puts a different twist on healthy, homemade food. I noticed that the oregano gave the nuggets a nice zip that is missing in the store bought brands. I do have to add that I’ve recently begun keeping some fresh spices in my new Infinity Jar. Infinity Jars are airtight ultraviolet glass jars and bottles and apothecary containers, designed to preserve the freshness of your herbs, spices, and natural products. Ours is a nice addition to our kitchen and aids in the freshness of our ingredients.

The next recipe my family will try will be Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos. I chose this specifically because, again, I have all of the ingredients in my kitchen, and I will also get to use my new Vidalia Chop Wizard for the onions and the peppers. I am not a fan of chopping veggies, but I do love to eat chopped vegetables. This cuts my time in half. Consider it for your next kitchen purchase.

In addition to the healthy aspects of this book, I love how they have given the appropriate ages for each dish. I know when my kids were babies, this would have been so beneficial for me. Making your own food isn’t hard, and it doesn’t take that much time. Thanks to this cookbook for giving us some variety in our kitchen. This is a must have for parents of babies, but it was so successful for my school-age children .

If you are looking for a healthy twist on food for your newborn, for your toddlers, or food for your whole family, visit www.whatagoodeater.com or purchase the book from Amazon here.