A Little Taste of the South...mmm Ya'll want some?

When ever you think of southern food what comes to mind? Barbecue, greens, deep fried, spicy food, sweet potato and cornbread. There are so many more dishes that can be associated with the south I took some of the more popular ones combined them, made a gluten free version and then added a little twist.

Here it is middle of October, leaves are falling, it's getting dark earlier, the weather is changing....WAIT! What?! Well in California we are still getting weather temperatures from the high 80's to low 90's  So it still feels like summer. Of course this time of year I am wanting some warm comfy food. The type of meal that will just take that cold weather edge off. Yea well that's not happening today but even if it's warm I am still going to make some "comfy" food.

It's 4pm and I am siting in front of my laptop, in a warm house trying to figure out what I am going make for dinner. I know I want chicken so I take 3 small breasts out of the freezer to defrost. I look around for something to make with it, I see a bag of Kettle Sea Salt chips.  I start thinking barbecue immediately. So now I look to see if I have the ingredients for my barbecue sauce, I have garlic powder, brown sugar, paprika and of course agave sweetened Organicville Ketchup.

Looking at the chicken, the chips and the ingredients for the bbq sauce I felt something was missing. Ahh a vegetable, looking in the fridge I see some tomatoes, onions, lettuce, poblano peppers nothing that is really speaking to me yet. Again I glance over at what I have out so far, I notice there is nothing green. Start heading over to the pantry but for some reason I still don't feel excited about making this meal. I grab a can of organic green beans and stand there pondering, wondering if I can create something new and different.

I have to pause here, I never envisioned myself as a writer not even a blogger. It's just not me to make a meal or cook something for the first time and have the blog on my mind. Now as I am posting to facebook, twitter and the blog it makes me a little more conscience of what I am making and if it would something other people would One, want to eat and Two, if they would want to read about it.  So now I am thinking of all of you before every meal. Back to the meal.

Last weekend we had a huge craving for fried chicken and it dawns on me to make chicken fried steak with green beans. But what to do with the bbq sauce? You are probably thinking he went from bbq chicken to fried chicken and he is worried about the bbq sauce he hasn't made yet? Well yea, I decided to use the potato chips as the "breading" for the chicken and to make it unique I was going to brush on the bbq sauce. So we add the greens and one more side. I think salad but again we are going for NEW and UNIQUE.  Grilled tomato salad is what I come up with.

To make the fried chicken, I needed 2 eggs, 1/4 cup almond milk, 3 cups of crushed potato chips and 1 cup of Bob's red mill gluten free all purpose flour. Taking a large pan turn stove to med heat, coat the bottom with sunflower oil and let the pan heat up. Take the chicken put it in the flour bowl followed by the egg bowl let sit for about 30 seconds each side, then transfer over to the crushed potato chip bowl which I seasoned with paprika, oregano and cumin. Be sure that the whole chicken is covered before setting it in the pan. Cover pan and cook each side for about 8-10 minutes depending on thickness of the chicken. While the chicken was cooking I took a medium pan drizzled some EVOO and tossed about 1/4 of a roughly chopped medium yellow onion and let it sit to caramelize. After about 3 minutes I took about 7 thickly sliced tomatoes seasoned with salt and garlic powder put them in with the onions and turned heat down to simmer. After about 18 minutes of cook time I had a southern meal.