Fried Chicken Sandwiches

Hi. I just have to vent for a minute because it has been a very stressful two weeks and the only way to truly express myself is through blogging and writing. Two weeks ago yesterday our owner's home burned completely to the ground. There is one wall left standing and the horse stalls. I spent four hours by the front of our gate watching their house and property burn. Luckily our property down the street did not get affected by it all. The planes and helicopters stopped the fire with retardant and it stopped right above our home. When we were able to go back into our home, the power was out because PG&E had turned off power to the owners home for safety reasons, not realizing there was another home that needed power. We were without power for four hours so it was an extremely long day. Of course I am SO grateful that our house did not burn down and it was devastating for our owners and friends. 

The next weekend, our water went out. We have well water and I think it was because of the fire, the sediment was going to the bottom of the well and clogging where the water comes out so the pump needed to be fixed. We were without water for 1.5 days so last Sunday was catching up on all things water - washer, showers and dishwasher. We just barely got caught up on dishes yesterday. On Tuesday, our power went out for an hour right before I was to attend a workshop which was so frustrating. I spent 30 minutes offering direction to a backup and everything went well, but still super challenging. I got paid on Thursday and within an hour of getting paid, I had $600 come out of my account through three transactions that I did not do. I closed my debit card, spent more than an hour yesterday trying to figure out my temporary card, had to cancel an appointment, went to five gas stations who all declined my temporary card and had to call Chime support three times to figure out why it kept declining. 

One of the three transactions dropped off within a day, it was only $30 so that didn't end up getting charged. The second charge is still pending and the third charge of almost $500 posted to my account today. I was able to open a dispute since it posted and it said I had to cancel my card, I had already cancelled my card they used so I clicked on OK...not realizing that it made my temporary card invalid. So I had to call Chime support again this morning and they provided me with yet ANOTHER temporary card so I've had three cards in three days! And I still have $570 worth of charges that have been taken out of my account that were not done by me. Hopefully I see the refund ASAP. And I can't view the temporary card for a few hours so there's that. 

While I was dealing with the new temporary card yesterday, I received an email from the school saying that there was a possible social media threat towards the schools or students in our area. No school was mentioned but definitely something that I did not expect to read. Luckily Jace is home safe and nothing happened :) All of this was just the tip of the iceberg.

On a different note, and the point of this blog, fried chicken sandwiches. I have been eating really good since April, or at least trying to, and using Noom. Every once in awhile though, we make somewhat "unhealthy" meals to balance out. Plus, I have a fiance and son who don't always want to eat what I do. These sandwiches were SO good. Also, as requested by Jace, he wanted me to use his photo he took of his food as the main photo for this blog, so here you go! Isn't he talented? He put together his own sandwich and took the photo. 

For this recipe, I tried to make it as healthy as possible with whole wheat flour, fat free milk, and an organic egg. 

I used chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs which is what the original recipe called for. They were thicker so I sliced them in half horizontally and then tried to roll them out as flat as I could. Unfortunately that didn't work out too well (they still turned out good, just thicker than I would have liked) so we ended up purchasing a tenderizer that we can use in the future. 

We took some of the recipe from here - https://www.cookerru.com/spicy-chicken-sandwich and the rest we made as our own.

Ingredients:
2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut in half and tenderized
1 organic egg
3/4 cup fat free milk
Pepper
2 tbsp garlic powder (divided 1 tbsp and 1 tbsp)
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp paprika
Vegetable Oil
Hamburger buns or bread
Toppings

Instructions:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, 1 tbsp garlic powder, and egg. In another bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, paprika and the remainder 1 tbsp garlic powder. 

Tenderize the chicken so it cooks quicker and evenly.  Add oil to a pan, turn the heat to medium high and let it get hot until it sizzles (I always flick water on it to see if it's hot enough), turn the heat down to medium (or a little lower if it's too hot, you don't want it to burn). Add chicken to the hot oil. Let cook for 4-5 minutes, turn over and cook for 4-5 minutes longer. 

Take the chicken off and take them to a plate. Slice the middle. If it still needs to be cooked (like mine), cook for 2-3 minutes longer per side, checking in-between to make sure it doesn't burn or overcook. 

Add to toast and enjoy!