Cool Ranch Experiment

I knew coming home today that I was going to make chicken. I also knew I wanted to do something different. Yesterday Josiah was snacking on Cool Ranch Doritos and I was contemplating trying to make them from home (something I still plan on trying!) but then thought to myself, "what if I make cool ranch chicken?"

So that's exactly what I did. I came home and made oven fried chicken with cool ranch Doritos. Let me start with the spicy potato wedges though. These wedges might be one of my favorite things I've gotten from Down Home with the Neely's. The recipe is super simple. Mix 1/3 cup of melted butter and olive oil, add a tablespoon of seasoned salt and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Toss 3-4 potatoes cut into wedges in the mix and spread them out on a cookie sheet. Their recipe calls for mixing fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese as well. I am stingy with my freshly grated Parmesan so I grate that over the wedges once they're on the cookie sheet and then I sprinkle dried parsley on them. Stick them in the oven for 50 minutes at 450. Since I was cooking chicken at the same time I cooked them at 400 today.

When you finish with the wedges there is always a lot of the oil mix left over. If you have a lipped cookie sheet you can poor the oil over the wedges. I decided to use the mix as a base for the chicken. I put four half chicken breasts in it and made sure they were evenly coated. There weren't many chips left in the bag but I went ahead and put them in a big Ziploc bag anyway and then crushed them up. I added the chicken one at a time and shook the bag until each piece was well coated. Into a foiled pan they went and they baked for 50 minutesas well.

About half way through baking the potato wedges need to be flipped. At that time I also turned the heat down to 375. Our oven tends to get hotter than most so that may not be necessary should you try this. When it was done I was a little nervous, I have to admit. I did mention in my very first post that about 1 in every 3 to 4 creative attempts of mine fail. Alas, I chalk this one up not so much as failure, but it didn't accomplish what I really wanted. I wanted more ranch flavor. It was good though. The chicken was really moist and the chips were crunchy and did maintain their flavor. Next time I think I'll add dry ranch mix. It sure did look pretty though :-)