Better than Sex Paleo Honey Mustard Chicken

No seriously...this chicken really is better than sex. It's so good you'll slap your granny.

And it's paleo. Yep! Totally freakin' paleo.

2lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
½ c olive oil
2T lemon juice
1T garlic powder
½T ground mustard

Mix together the last four ingredients to create a marinade for the chicken breasts. I poured it over the chicken and let it set for about 3 hrs. I also used a fork to stab the chicken a little to help tenderize/flavor the chicken. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400°

Sauce:
½ c raw organic honey
½ c Dijon mustard
1T minced garlic
½ tsp ground mustard
½ tsp onion powder
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp basil leaves
1 tsp dried thyme

Mix the ground mustard, onion powder and lemon juice together so it doesn't clump up when mixed with the rest of the ingredients. Combine all ingredients. Set aside.

Line a rimmed cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place a cooking rack over that. Spray with olive oil cooking spray and place the chicken on the rack.  Bake at 400° on one side for 10 mins. Turn chicken with tongs. Bake another 15 mins. Chicken drippings will fall to the foil. Leave them there. When the timer goes off, pull them out and generously coat chicken pieces with honey mustard mixture. Bake for 10 mins. Flip, coat opposite side and bake another 10 mins.

When done, place in a shallow baking dish and carefully take the cooking rack out of the pan and using a whisk, mix together the chicken juices and the honey mustard sauce that dripped off the chicken. Pour over the chicken in the serving dish and serve with steam vegetables or rice.

I am VERY picky with what I eat on this paleo diet, but this is something I could eat every day if I could. My family is not Paleo and they all ate two helpings. You may want to double the recipe, if you want leftovers because it will go fast!

Chicken Pomodoro

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 pkg polenta
1 can petite diced tomatoes (or 3-4 fresh Roma tomatoes)
3 cloves minced garlic (or 2T)
2 T fresh basil (3T dried basil)
olive oil
bread crumbs (gluten-free are fine)

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet on medium heat.

Using a meat tenderizer, pound the chicken breasts as flat as possible without them falling apart and dredge in bread crumbs. Add to the olive oil and cover the skillet with a lid. Let simmer until they begin to get brown, then flip the chicken and cover again.

In a separate skillet, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Slice polenta into ½" slices and add to skillet. Turn over when it starts to brown up. Polenta will soften, so be careful when you're flipping it.

Once polenta starts to brown on both sides, remove the lid from the chicken, turn up the heat to medium-high and let it crisp up. When chicken is done, set aside and cover to retain heat. To that skillet, add garlic and more olive oil, if preferred. Sauté for a couple minutes, then add tomatoes and basil. Simmer until heated thoroughly.

Serve polenta and chicken with pomodoro sauce over the top.

** Tip: If you use gluten-free bread crumbs, be cautious about burning. You'll want to keep the medium heat throughout the cooking process instead of increasing heat when you remove the lid.

** This can also be served with pasta or over crusty pieces of baguette, if you prefer.

Gluten-Free Buffalo Chicken Nuggets

After forty years of eating badly and filling my diet with wheat flours, dairy and sugar, this transition has been the most monumental thing I've ever tackled. It has not been fun. It has not been exciting. And, sadly, it has not been flavorful. When I made a dairy-free ranch dressing last night and it tasted like infant formula mixed with onion powder and the tears of disappointed fat kids, I literally cried. I knew I had to find something that I normally ate that could be modified effectively. Enter my passion for buffalo chicken. If there wasn't SOME way I could make this dish happen on this new diet, I knew I'd never make it work.

God bless rice flour and canola oil.

If you've seen my recipe for chicken lips or fried chicken, you know what I normally use to make them: milk, all-purpose flour, etc. This is a simple substitution and it. tastes. AMAZING. Not "I'm going to tell them it's amazing when it tastes like roof shingles" amazing. I'm talking INCREDIBLY good. My family tried them and they think they're even better than my usual recipe. I tend to agree.

2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 eggs, beaten
¼ c Red Hot Wing sauce
½ c water
1 c rice flour (almond flour would also work)
1 c corn starch
salt
pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
canola oil (or other healthy oil) for frying.

Without getting all "Alton Brown-scientific" on you, trust me that you'll want to cut your chicken into thinner strips than normal before cutting into nugget size. Between the rice flour/corn starch being different from regular flour breading and the oil being a different smoke point, you can burn the crust of the nugget and have raw chicken inside. You don't want that. :) I would say a good measure would be about ½" thick and 1-1½" long.

Mix together the eggs, hot sauce and water in a bowl. Typically I would use a milk/egg wash and, if you chose to, you could use coconut or almond milk, but I wanted to try this first. You can use a different hot sauce/water mix depending on how spicy you want the breading.

Mix together the rice flour and corn starch, then add the seasonings to taste. You can add any seasonings you'd like (cayenne, paprika, etc) or keep it plain with just salt and pepper. 

Preheat your oil to 375° (this is a relative guess, as I don't usually use a thermometer. When a pinch of flour sizzles when dropped in the hot oil, it's warm enough).

Dip the chicken pieces in the egg mixture, then the flour mixture. Double-dip back in the egg mixture and the dry mix again. Add to the hot oil and cook on each side until golden brown.

Drain on a paper towel or napkin, letting the nuggets cool for a couple minutes. Sometimes rice flour and corn starch can be gummy and fall off if you handle them too much right out of the oil.

I'm sure these can also be baked with the use of a cooking spray, so if anyone knows how to do this effectively, I look forward to hearing from you.

I drizzled these with more Red Hot wing sauce, but you could serve plain, too. They're crunchy, flavorful and absolutely delicious.