Ranch Chicken & Crunchy Sweet Potato Fries

I COOKED last night! And not only did I cook something, I cooked a side dish as well. Not sure if that's ever happened in the history of the Dreher house unless it was out of a package.

And the kicker....everyone liked it! Including my picky husband and my even pickier son. So I figured the recipes were worth posting here. Both are easy (kinda a prerequisite for me) and both are from Pinterest. :)

Ranch Chicken
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup crushed cornflakes
1 packet Ranch seasoning
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
4 T melted butter


Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Spray 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Combine cornflakes, Ranch seasoning, and Parmesan cheese in Ziploc bag. Shake to mix it up. Trim chicken (I sliced them in half horizontally so they'd cook faster) and dip one in butter on both side, then put in Ziploc bag with cornflake mixture. Close bag and shake to coat chicken. Put chicken in 9x13 pan and repeat process with each chicken breast. Pour excess cornflake mixture on top of chicken. Bake for 45-50 minutes, putting foil over it for the last 15 minutes to prevent burning.

 


Crunchy Sweet Potato Fries
Sweet potatoes
Cornstarch
Olive oil
Salt


Peel and slice sweet potatoes into fries of a medium thickness. Let soak in water for anywhere from 1 hour to half the day (I did 1 hour). Drain fries and put in Ziploc bag with 1-2 Tablespoons cornstarch. Close bag and shake to lightly coat fries. You may have to use more cornstarch depending on how many potatoes you're using. Lay fries out on non-stick baking sheets (spray sheets with spray because these puppies STICK!). Drizzle 2 Tablespoons olive oil over them, and then mix with your hands til fries are evenly coated with oil. Make sure to spread fries out so they're not touching as they cook. Sprinkle with a little salt if desired. Pop in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes. Flip fries over and put back in oven for 5 minutes. Serve with Ranch dressing.

You like the gross pictures? They were taken hastily as I was trying not to ruin dinner. You see, at least one thing goes wrong EVERY time I try to cook. Which is why I don't try to cook. Last time, I put chicken in the crockpot in the morning so we could have it for dinner. What could go wrong with that, you might ask? Well, that evening after I'd ate half a piece of the chicken, Adam discovered that little pad that goes underneath the meat in the packaging had been in the crockpot cooking with the chicken all day. So we threw it all away.

Last night, two things happened. First, I burned my thumb on the oven (rookie mistake that's happened to me on more than one occasion) and secondly, I forgot to spray the second sheet of fries with cooking spray before putting them in the oven, so that entire tray went to waste. BUMMER.

Additionally I didn't time things quite right so we had chicken for our main dish and sweet potato fries as our dessert. But Sutton and Adam scarfed everything down, so I consider this a success.