This week I stepped out of my cooking box. I'm not referring to my kitchen, but referring to CW2C's decision to approach cooking in a different way. We want to foster new habits in our kitchens. Chicken is on my dinner menu weekly; if Molly has her way Cook with 2 Chicks’ basic pounded chicken is what I would always prepare. Keeping that in mind, as well as attempting to make something new, I decided to change the chicken to tilapia. I used the same dredging method as in our basic pounded chicken recipe, however instead of using flour I used Panko bread crumbs with a couple of handfuls of shredded asiago and shredded parmesan cheese. My intention was to get my son who avoids fish to think he was eating chicken. Did I just hear a gasp? I didn’t TELL him it was chicken. I just made it look exactly the same.
My strategy didn’t go exactly as I had planned. When we have pounded chicken for dinner, Molly and I usually make it together. In order to pull off the switch I had to complete the dredging process before the kids got home from school. This caused immediate discussion (even some suspicion?) when they walked in the door. I did my best to cover up the change in routine by explaining we had such a busy night I was trying to prepare as much ahead of time as possible. Dinner was ready and I thought I was home free. Until. My non-fish eater wanted to know why I had a slice of lemon on top of my “chicken.” He said, “That’s not how we serve it!” I was caught; it was time to confess. Thankfully Matthew is also the only one who will try anything (with an open mind) so he took a bite. YES! He liked it, but not as much as our traditional parmesan encrusted pounded chicken. I also heard several times during dinner, "this tilapia is a little fishy, don't you think Mom?” The happy ending to this story is that we all ate the tilapia and I served my first "new" meal of the year!
New adventures in the kitchen this week
- Garlic bread with parmesan and cheddar cheese.
- Homemade corn tortillas with our own taco seasoning blend.
- Creamy buttermilk blue cheese dressing with a bit of heat.
- Salmon, tilapia and chicken seasoned with a blend we're developing.
- 101 Cookbooks' Moroccan Carrot Chick Pea Salad.
Check back to read more about our new kitchen adventures!