Buttermilk Pecan Chicken

Mmmm...Mmmm...Gooood!

Warning: If you are on a diet do not read any further!

Seriously...

Ok, well I warned you...

Buttermilk chicken is delicious, delectable, divine and down-right scrumptious!

I love the library. Yes, the library. I've even had someone call AW & I "library-lovin' fools", I think that was Hillery, thanks friend =)

Here's the thing, we don't have cable and we're ok with that, obviously, but sometimes you just wanta "veg out". Now, we did buy some rabbit ears so we get the big network channels so we can watch the news and SVU and The Office and whatnot. Because those are the only programs we really care about (besides football, DUH!), cable just seems like a waste of money for our family.

But before we had the rabbit ears and our new t.v. we would go to the library multiple times a week to borrow dvd's! It's awesome! FREE! FREE! FREE! Plus the Hoover Library has just about everything and if they don't you can request it & they'll order it!

And do I need to even talk about all of the amazing books at the library? No, I don't, because we all know that is what the library is all about. Thank you Ben Franklin!

So, one evening on our trip to the library I got a couple of cook books to copy down some new recipes. I had kind of been recycling my standard go-to recipes a bit too much and I didn't want AW to get too burnt out on spaghetti, tacos, etc...

In a Southern Living book, I found a great recipe for "Buttermilk Picnic Chicken". I copied it down but had yet to use because it calls for a lot of ingredients. And they are ingredients that I don't have and can't see using for anything else so it wasn't a priority recipe. But then I was watching the Today Show one morning and they had someone on there who made a very simplified version of the SL recipe.

I decided I didn't want to over-complicate it nor did I want to over-simplify it so I just kind of did my own version and you can do your own version too based on what you have lying around!

I let two, thawed chicken breasts soak in buttermilk for about 2-3 hours (*in the fridge*)
(You can let it soak for as short as 1 hour or as long as 8 hours)

I then preheated the oven to 350

I then took some fresh pecans and ground them up in the blender

Next, I mixed the breading consisting of: the pecans, fine bread crumbs, garlic salt and seasoning salt (you can also add paprika or any other "stuff" you like...there's a lot of freedom in this part of the recipe!)

I then let the excess buttermilk drip off the chicken and thickly coated it in the breading mix

I placed both chicken breasts on a cookie sheet covered with foil and drizzled the coated chicken with melted butter. LOTS of melted butter!

It bakes for an hour in the oven

It really was so super yummy! Next time I'm going to have to make 4 pieces of chicken because we tore it up!
Here's a pic of the final product:

HAPPY EATING =)