Buffalo Chicken Strips with Blue Cheese Salad

One of my favorite spots for my Summer recipes is Everyday Foods (http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/). There are a ton of fresh feeling recipes in this site. One that we particularly enjoy is this recipe. When the weather gets hot, these little strips are fried, so the house doesn't heat up. Its' companion, blue cheese salad comes together easily. I did switch out the salad dressing in the original recipe for a ranch dressing mixed with hot sauce. I also doubled up on the sauce as in the original recipe, it doesn't even begin to cover all the strips. This dish is enough to fill you up without overfilling you on those hot Summer days!

So here we go:

Ingredients:

4 T. Butter
6 T. Ketchup
2-4 T. Hot Sauce
1 C. All purpose flour
1 t. Salt
1 t. Pepper
2 Eggs lightly beaten
2 t. Water
1.5 lbs. Chicken Tenderloins
4 cups Canola oil
6 T. Ranch Dressing
1 T. Hot Sauce
1 Head Romaine Lettuce, chopped
16 Baby Carrots, chopped
3 Celery stalks, chopped

Directions:

Chicken Strips:

1) In a small saucepan, combine butter, ketchup and hot sauce until well blended. Set aside.

2) In an electric skillet, heat oil to 400 degrees.
3) In a Ziploc bag, combine flour, salt and pepper. Coat chicken tenderloins with flour
4) In a bowl, combine eggs and water. Dip tenderloins in egg mixture and return to flour and redip.
5) Place in hot oil.
6) Fry for 10 minutes and remove from oil to paper towel covered surface to drain.
7) Dip chicken strips in sauce and place in a large bowl/baking dish. Pour the remainder of the sauce over strips and continue to turn until well covered.

8) Keep warm in a 170 degree oven until ready to serve.

Blue Cheese Salad:

1) Place all vegetables in a bowl.
2) Mix ranch dressing and hot sauce in a small bowl and pour over veggies. Stir until well blended.

Serve!