What Are You Having For Dinner

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I am attempting to make homemade chicken noo noo (noodle) soup with a store bought chicken. Yuck! I guess I am spoiled.

I simmered the chicken with veggies for stock yesterday. The meat was mush when I picked the bones today and it practically dissolved when put back in the stock. Insipid flavour.

Free range yard bird beats the heck out of store bought mushy, tasteless chicken.

Anyways, chicken noo noo soup and corn bread tonight.
 
Pickin's were slim tonight when I went searching the house for something to cook. I found some frozen Tilalpia fillets in the basement freezer. Rice would go with that - I always have rice sitting around. Nothing on the green vegetable side. Other than salad fixin's. Fine - we like salads.

Normally I do the triple-dredge thing for fish fillets or chicken breasts. Dredge through flour, then through beaten eggs, then through bread crumbs with a little salt and pepper mixed in. Air fry the result. This comes out OK, but recently I've been thinking it is too bland. Maybe I need seasoned bread crumbs rather than the plain panko ones I've been using.

So I just made up something to do with the Tilalpia. First I rubbed all surfaces of each fillet with oilive oil. Then I sprinkled on some Kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, some Italian Seasoning Mix (I like the Spice Islands brand), poured some lemon juice over the fillets, then sprinkled some grated Parmesan cheese over them (the refrigerated kind, not the dry powder kind). I used my fingers to smash everything into the fillets so it would stick. That failed for the most part, but at least I tried.

Then I put the fillets in the air fryer set to Bake, 350 degrees, for 12 minutes. Our air fryer is one of the fancy ones that has both top and bottom heating elements (most only have a top element). It's a Cosori "Dual-Blaze". The Bake setting uses the bottom element on full power, with just a tad of power to the top element. The blower fan still runs. So I guess it's pretty much just a convection oven at this setting (albeit one with a very powerful blower).

This crazy Tilalpia came our great! Nice and flavorful. Very moist. I was surprised, since I was just making things up as I went along. There wasn't much cheese on top of the fish, probably because it just got blown around in the air fryer tornado. But there was some, you could taste it, and it definitely added something nice to the result.

FWIW, for anyone in the market for an air fryer, I highly recommend the Cosori Dual-Blaze. We never use our oven any more, except for larger things like pizzas or baking sheets with lots of rolls, biscuits or cookies on them. This air fryer is great for everything else.

Cosori_Dual_Blaze_Air_Fryer_Elements_Settings.jpg
 
I had tater tots for lunch......just tater tots!! 😛
I had that for lunch yesterday. But I threw in a few chicken strips. As if more fried stuff would make things healthier (but they did give it more variety!)

Cravings and ease-of-preparation sometimes win out over common sense. Of course, we probably have people here who make their own (healthy) tater tots. But I'm not one of those people.
 
I can't eat fast food anymore. Just don't trust it. I feel like I don't even know what I'm eating.
It's a lot grosser now than we remember it from decades ago. How I ever liked a Carl's Jr. hamburger back in the day defies comprehension now. If I even think about one now I'm also thinking about a dish of antacids as a side order.
 

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