Oh hello!  I guess I forgot to mention I was taking a blog break last Thursday and Friday when I was on my trip.  I decided not to bring my laptop – it’s Jacob’s old one (2011) and while its a great MacBook Pro, it’s heavy.  Thanks to everyone who reached out and asked if I was okay – I appreciate it!

Also, turns out I can’t read a calendar – I thought TODAY was June 30, and well, it’s July 1.  Luckily, my friends at Safe + Fair have extended my 25% off discount through today – 25% off your entire order plus free shipping WHICH NOW ENDS TODAY.   Just click this link and enter the discount code BIZ25. 

I wasn’t sure I’d get this recipe together since it was so stormy by me yesterday, our power went out at about 1:00 p.m. and continued to go on and off for several hours.  At 5:30 it stayed on – whew!

I decided to try a fried chicken sandwich with the Safe + Fair Sea Salt Pea Protein Chips.  They have 10 grams of protein per serving.  I mixed 14 grams of the chips (1) mixed that with a tablespoon of tempura batter dry (1) and 1/8 cup of self-rising flour (1) mixed with a teaspoon of my blackened seasoning.  

I did a double dip – once into the egg mixture, once in the dry batter and repeat.  Now don’t skip this step – freeze this for 15 minutes – that will ensure that the batter stays on the chicken. 

While that was in the freezer, I made a quick red cabbage and dill pickle slaw.  I poured pickle juice into the sliced cabbage for 10 minutes – which softened the cabbage and gave it a quick pickle taste, then chopped it up with two pickle spears.

Since we are saving so many points on the fried chicken, use a good bun.  These Martin Potato Rolls are so good – 120 calories or 4 smart points – worth it!!

I cooked the chicken at 360 for 6 minutes, then flipped, then 4 minutes on 400.

This was a delicious chicken sandwich – I will say that the chicken I made with the quinoa popcorn Safe + Fair chips was crunchier, but this was perfectly seasoned, the batter stayed on with every bite.  So good!  That’s a giant sandwich for 5.5 points!!

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It doesn’t touch the best fried chicken sandwich I ever had this past weekend though at Larder Delicatessen and Bakery in Cleveland.  Holy balls.

Jeremy and Scott make this chicken thigh fried chicken sandwich that was so amazing.  I’ll be dreaming about this sandwich for a long time.  I think it’s worthy of a 5 hour drive from where I live!

This past weekend was so amazing – Certified Angus Beef® hosted an amazing group of people, some new friends and old friends that I was happy to see again like David from Spiced Blog who I met last year, and Lisa from Jersey Girl Cooks and Renee from Renee’s Kitchen Adventures – both of whom I’ve “known” in the food blog world since 2009 and just met for the first time!!  And the dream team of myself, Yvonne from Tried and Tasty and Isabelle from Family Foodie – together we won the Tailgating Competition on Friday – so shocked because we were competing against some professional BBQ competitors like Christie from Girls Can Grill and Chris from Nibble Me This.

In the next week or so I’ll be doing a recap of my trip – hands down the best food meal after meal – I kept thinking it couldn’t get any better and then we’d go to the next venue, and the food was just as awesome if not better. 

I am so richer for the experience, learned more about my beloved beef which I’ll share with you soon, and try to acclimate myself back to my desk job today.  Um, turns out I don’t have a kitchen or grill by my desk. 😛

Happy Monday!  Make it a great day!