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Yesterday I was out to lunch with a friend, and, as I sat there, cutting up my turkey sandwich into little pieces, and eating bits at a time, I found myself saying (as I often do), "I'm sorry, sometimes I just like to play with my food."
It's true. Most often with sandwiches, but really with anything I can dip [I'm a sucker for sauces and cuckoo for condiments (much more so than for Cocoa Puffs...)], I often fall into an unconscious self-indulgence of gratifyingly "playing with my food."
I'll tear the crusts off my Take-It-Away sandwich a little at a time and dip each piece one by one into the house dressing. When I ate grilled cheese as I kid, I always ate the crust first, then peeled the bread apart, eating that next, and then finally savoring the creamy hunk of melted cheese. Just the other night I had Pita Pit, and, instead of picking up the nicely rolled pita in two hands and eating it like a normal person, I opened it up onto a plate and ate it with a fork so that I could dip the veggies into my (not one, but THREE) accompanying sauces, then tore the pita up and ate it a little at a time. [This is also one of the reasons I love to have dressing on the side when I order salads.] Sometimes I use chopsticks at my house just for fun...and not necessarily with anything Asian inspired.
That's not to say that I can't function in society, or that I don't have good table manners (my grandmother is probably having a heart attack right now). I know proper etiquette and which fork to use for which course, but, like drinking orange soda and coloring in coloring books, playing with your food (just a lil' bit) is a childhood activity that never gets old. [And when life gets too serious, it certainly forces you to lighten up and smile!]
So, when faced with the fact that the free bread I have been diligently trying to use up was starting to fall apart (due to an air bubble from baking I presume)...
I knew exactly what to do: use the broken pieces to make bread crumbs, and use those bread crumbs to make some chicken nuggets (classic go-to meal for babysitters and frazzled guardians everywhere).
First, I toasted up the broken bread pieces in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes (the bread came straight from the freezer, so it probably took a little longer than if I had fresh bread).
The point here is to dry it out, so if you have stale bread it would work too.
I chopped up the bread in my mini-chopper, and got about a cup of bread crumbs out of it.
If you don't want to make your own, store bought bread crumbs (I recommend Panko) would work perfectly, although the outer coating won't be as textrous. [I don't think that's a word, but basically homemade breadcrumbs are not as uniform in texture, so the final result is an outer coating that has a lot of crunch!]
Next, I diced up chicken into bite-sized nuggets. (I used one of my frozen chicken breasts, mostly thawed but not completely; this made it so much easier to cut.)
I dried the chicken with a paper towel (not pictured) and sprinkled on a little salt and pepper.
On a separate plate, I stirred together 1/4 cup wheat flour with 1 tsp of garlic powder and some black pepper...
