Crispy Homemade Veggie Nuggets

Occasionally, I make promises to people and it’s not that I intend to break them, it just takes me a while to get around to it.

When Love Your Leftovers was published in April, my good friend Benton asked if he could come over so I could show him how to actually make the homemade chicken nuggets in the book.

I responded, “Well Sir. You could just follow the directions in the book.” But he wasn’t too confident of his abilities to do that so I was totally up for showing him the chicken nugget tricks. It also gives me an excuse to make them.

That was six months ago. I blamed the delay on baby prep and Food Fighters prep.

But, finally we made the cooking date happen a few weeks ago.

One problem: Benton’s wife is a vegetarian. Rather than spend $10 on silly fake chicken nuggets, I thought I would try my hand at making some homemade veggie nuggets  with some fresh colorful veggies!

INGREDIENTS

• 2-3 medium carrots
• 1 parsnip
• 2 small new potatoes
• 1 golden beet
• 1 stalk broccoli
• 1 Serrano pepper, seeded
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• Frying:
• 2 cups Italian Bread crumbs
• 3 large eggs
• 1 quart oil for frying

Directions

1. Chop carrots, parsnip, new potatoes, golden beet, and broccoli into one-inch chunks. Bring a pot of salted water to a simmer and blanch all the veggies until tender. I recommend blanching the broccoli separately from the others. The sturdier veggies will take about 10 minutes to soften, while the broccoli will take 2-3 minutes.
2. Drain the veggies and add them to a food process along with the Serrano pepper, olive oil, salt and pepper. Pulse the mixture until it’s mostly smooth.
3. .....................................

for full recipes please see : www.macheesmo.com

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