What's For Dinner-Monday- Baked Cheddar Ranch Chicken & SIMPLE Southern Style Green Beans

Confession:
I am a neglector of blogs....a blog neglector...that is what I am...but NO MORE! I am going to attempt to post a blog everyday. Right here, right now, I pledge to be that annoying person at dinner who cannot touch her food until she has taken a picture.

What's For Dinner -Monday

Baked Cheddar Ranch Chicken Tenders & Simple Southern Style Green Beans

This dinner was 50% intentional, 50% serendipity and 100% yummy! I got the idea for the chicken from one of my FAVORITE blogs, Plain Chicken. My recipe is a slightly altered version of her Crispy Cheddar Chicken Tenders. If you have not yet checked out the Plain Chicken blog, do yourself a favor and do so, you will not be disappointed. Her recipe yields more of a fully breaded chicken tender, I was going for more of a southern pan fried look.

Baked Cheddar Ranch Chicken Tenders

You Need
2 lbs chicken tenders
1/2 sleeve Ritz Crackers
1 Cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 envelope Ranch dressing mix
2 cups milk

 PREP: 
Pour 2 cups milk into a large ziplock and marinade the tenders the morning you plan to cook, let them marinade all day, this little milk bath will make your chicken super moist!

 Step One:
Preheat oven to 400.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine crackers, cheese, and Ranch mix.  Pulse until you have fine crumbs.

Bake for 12-15 minutes.

 Step Two:
Remove chicken from milk marinade and place on a foil lined baking pan.

 Step Three:
Liberally sprinkle cheesy coating over tenders and bake for 12-15 minutes.

 I attribute this next recipe to pure unadulterated serendipity. After I made the chicken I was left with half a packet of ranch dressing mix, not wanting to waste it I decided to throw it into the side dish and that is when magic happened. I ended up with southern style green beans (you know, the kind that you cook with a ham hock all day and add a billion things to including vinegar) in less than 2 minutes.


Simple Southern Style Green Beans

You Need
2 cans cut green beans
1/2 envelope ranch dressing mix
1/2 bag bacon crumbles (NOT the crunchy bacos, the real bacon crumbles, I use Oscar Mayer)

Step One:
Drain green beans leaving approx. 1 tbsp liquid and pour into microwavable bowl.

Step Two: 
Add bacon and ranch mix, stir and microwave for two minutes.

THAT'S IT ! These beans were a hit! Not to mention these taste like authentic Southern Style green beans that have been slaved over!

Finished off our "waste not, want not" meal by using up some leftover hotdog buns, popped those in an 8X8 baking dish, spritzed the tops with some I cant believe its not butter spray and popped them into the oven (still at 400 from chicken) for about two minutes..TA-DA..."fresh" rolls!