Super Duper Watson Nuggets

These turned out pretty dang good for a quick ad-hoc dinner with no measuring and very little planning before turning the stove on.

What you’ll need:

  • Chicken breasts
  • Seasoning
  • Olive Oil
  • Pan that can get hot – ideally cast iron
  • Some sort of side to go with this meat dish, I did a pan fried mix veggies with what we had in the fridge (onion, bell pepper, asparagus)

What you’ll do with the meat to turn it into Watson Nuggets:

  • Cut up the breasts into about 1.5 inch squares. For the chicken breasts I used it was about 12 chunks for 1 breast.
  • Combine your favorite dry seasonings in a bowl. I used a combination “to taste” of italian bread crumbs, black pepper, red pepper flakes, Ms. dash garlic & herb seasoning, garlic salt, and basil.
  • Lightly coat chicken cubes with olive oil
  • Dump them in handful sized batches into the dry seasoning mix moving them around as if you’re kneading bread until the cubes are covered in the seasoning and mostly dry to the touch.
  • Throw the chicken cubes into a pretty hot cast-iron pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil. It should be quite a sizzle when they hit the pan.
  • Flip each cube after about 3 minutes or until darker-than-golden brown on the first side.
  • Pan fry another couple minutes until second side is browned to perfection
  • Serve and enjoy! No dipping sauce required, but would be good with whatever you like on chicken nuggets… BBQ sauce, ketchup, honey, mustard, etc.

Pork Tenderloin and Fruit!

What you need:

  • unseasoned pork loin or tenderloin (about 2 pounds)
  • a bunch of spices
  • dutch oven
  • some fruit (I used 1 apple and not very ripe pear)
  • olive oil
  • an oven and a stove

I have no idea how you should do it, but this is what I did:

  1. Preheat the oven to 450
  2. Put dutch oven on high flame on the stove to warm up with some olive oil in it
  3. Lather the meat with some olive oil (use your hands, don’t be afraid to get a little dirty)
  4. Rub all over loin your favorite spices. I used red pepper flakes, garlic powder, basil, pepper, and garlic salt.
  5. Brown loin on all sides in dutch oven for a total of about 8-15 minutes depending on cut and heat. Start with the fat side up.
  6. Dice pear and apple into about 1 inch chunks
  7. Turn off stove and add pear and apple plus the dutch oven lid
  8. Place in oven
  9. After about 10 minutes remove the lid
  10. Pull out after another 5-15 minutes depending on cut. Use the old fashioned poke test to know when to pull it out of the oven.
  11. Let meat rest on cutting board for 5-10 minutes and place fruit in a serving bowl
  12. Slide meat against the grain into about half inch thick hunks
  13. Enjoy!

We served this with a delicious Kale salad that I have no clue how to make.