Homemade Chicken Nuggets

My older son LOVES chicken nuggets. Funnily enough, not the ones from McDonald's but the frozen dinosaur nuggets from Costco. He has been on a major nugget kick and it is driving me crazy that it is all he asks for every night for dinner. It takes a lot for me to steer him in a different direction. So tonight I decided to try making homemade nuggets. I was watching part of the Today show yesterday and saw Catherine McCord who is the creator of Weelicious.com (a site I frequent for food ideas for the kids). She was making veggie nuggets and I thought hmm...it didn't look too difficult so maybe I should try it.

So try I did tonight and I was right, not difficult at all! Actually they were quite easy and pretty quick to make. I think I may have found a new nugget for my nugget nut! I followed the recipe completely so there isn't a difference like I usually post the differences I did with my recipe versus the one I found. So for those of you with a chicken nugget nut in the house, check out this recipe for Homemade Chicken Nuggets on Weelicious.com.

We had leftovers so I popped them in the freezer so they are ready to heat up the next time my son says he wants nuggets!

Homemade Microwave Popcorn

I love popcorn! Almost every time I go to the movies I HAVE to have some. However, the at home microwave popcorn kind of grosses me out. The film that I get on the roof of my mouth when I am eating it annoys me. I had heard about making homemade popcorn with a technique of a paper bag, oil and kernels so I decided to try it. You take a brown paper bag, add 1/3 cup popcorn kernels, 1 Tablespoon oil and I sprinkle a little salt, then microwave for 2 minutes and 22 seconds (this is what works for my microwave). YES! It was just what I was looking for. So I bought some brown paper bags and would make it pretty often. The only downside is that the oil seeps through the bag pretty quickly and leaves a bit of a puddle in my microwave. So I would have to put a folded paper towel underneath to catch some of it. But it was worth it to have that non-filmy popcorn quickly popped in the microwave! LOVE IT!

Then I was doing some shopping at Target recently and stumbled upon this microwave popcorn popper container from Nordicware that you put the popcorn kernels in and pop in the microwave. Since we make tons of homemade popcorn at home I decided to give it a try and I am so glad I did. This thing is awesome! I don't even need oil. Just put 1/3 cup popcorn kernels in the container, put on the lid and put it in the microwave for about 2 1/2 minutes. I have had perfect popcorn ever since and no oil film at all. PLUS, there is such a small amount of unpopped kernels at the bottom in comparison to my brown paper bag popping or even the store bought microwave popcorn that I am sold on this thing! I would highly recommend checking this thing out, the added bonus is it's under $10 and you can use it over and over again.

Homemade Chicken Stock

Every time we go to Costco we usually pick up one of their rotisserie chickens since they are only $5 and can be so many meals for us. Once I have removed all the chicken from the carcass I will make chicken stock with it. I start by boiling water with the chicken carcass in the pot. I add a few seasonings, depending on my mood or plan for the chicken stock. Once it begins to boil I turn it down to a simmer and there it sits for about 4 hours.

If I plan to use it immediately or within a day or two I put it in a plastic container and put it in the fridge. If I am going to save it, I put it in a plastic bag and throw it in the freezer with the date it was created on it. This is by far my favorite way to use chicken broth for my recipes because it tastes SO much better, plus it was really inexpensive and I am all about that. YUM!