F.I.N.A.L.S.

by Mara @ What's For Dinner? on December 15, 2009

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I’d never heard this acronym until I joined Facebook two years after I graduated college (you gotta remember, I’m older than most of you!) and all of a sudden, there were these groups called:

Fu** I. Never. Actually.Learned. This. Sh**

Which, coincidentally, I think is hilarious. I know many of you are in the throes of final exams, and I just wanted to send you all a little laugh

Also, finals is the inspiration for tonight’s dinner. I really wanted comfort food, and when I tweeted about it, the lovely Meghann suggested baked chicken fingers, which immediately sent me into a memory spiral…

It was finals 1998 at Bradley University. I had successfully completed one semester of college with only one thing standing between me and six weeks of break: FINAL EXAMS. I had 4 exams that term: one in Spanish, one in Math, one in my Intro to Education class, and one in my “get used to being in college” waste of time one-hour class. I had done all the intricate math to figure out exactly how low of a grade I could get on the final and maintain my decent GPA for the term. I had planned out a study schedule, complete with phone call breaks coordinated with my roommate (again, younger than you all, no cell phones yet!). What I hadn’t done yet, was actually study. My friend Meghan who, at the time, was my pizza-sharing, car-having, friends-from-home-in-common floormate (she later became one of my very best friends, we were bridesmaids in each others weddings, and talk nearly every day) had decided that we were going to leave the dorm and campus to study. We went to Perkins. I ordered my favorite thing: chicken fingers with extra honey mustard, french fries, loads of diet coke, and ice cream for dessert. While it was great to get off campus, we still didn’t exactly study… this became our tradition each and every midterm and final season for all 5 years we were there together.

Chicken fingers still conjure memories from college, and I felt the need to re-vamp my old favorite tonight. I came up with this delicious plate:

Panko-Crusted Chicken Fingers

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts, cut into strips

1/2 c. flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 c. panko breadcrumbs

Directions

Dredge each chicken strip first in flour, then in egg, then coat in panko. Place on baking pan and bake until done at 375*, about 20 minutes. Broil a few minutes to brown the crust.

I made a much better choice as side dishes than I used to: pan-roasted broccoli and a small baked potato with fat free sour cream instead of french fries. The chicken fingers were crunchy and delicious, and all they were missing was some honey mustard sauce!

I’m on a chocolate chip cookie dough truffle mission tonight. After I brought the leftovers from Sunday to school yesterday, my coworkers who didn’t get one asked me to make them again. Since Adam’s out tonight taking his last grad school final of the semester, I figured I’d have the time!

Don’t forget to enter my cookbook giveaway, and email me any guest posts for next week by Thursday!

Have a wonderful night and a great Wednesday!