Southern Fried Chicken

Southern Fried Chicken, a classic comfort food that comes out perfectly every time!

Hello, my lovely friends! I hope you have a good strong cup-o-coffee handy today because boy, do we have a lot to talk about!

First of all, if you are coming here for this ah-mazing Fried Chicken recipe, I applaud your good judgment. This southern fried chicken is a thing dreams are made of. (Also, if you don’t want to hear my life story for the past week, scroll to the bottom of this post for the recipe!)

Crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside. Truly finger licking good! And, me being well… me. I added a little something-something to the mix to make this chicken dinner (or lunch, I don’t judge) over the top!

Okay, but let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of what I like to refer to as “heck week”, or you can get a little more colorful there if you wish. 😉

Hurrican Irma.

Oh boy, she was one bad mother. It all started early last week when the panic rushed in. Okay…. no big deal… the biggest storm to ever hit is coming straight for us.

Okay… your worst nightmare might come true.

Okay… I can handle this… how? Go to the store, buy ALL the things. Come back home and prepare.

And, what do I come back home with you ask? Well….. if you follow me on Instagram (btw, if you don’t, you better get on that!) you would know that I bought ALL the junk food.

All of it.

And, I was like what the heck is wrong with me? We need actual food to survive, we can’t just stuff our faces with cookies and cereal. But, then one of my lovely followers commented saying, comfort food!

And a lightbulb went off.

She was right. I bought everything comforting that I knew my Hubby and I would like. Everything I needed in that moment to feel at peace.

That’s what food does for us. It brings with it warm fuzzies. Even sometimes taking us back to a simpler time in our lives that we don’t even realize. I felt better about my decisions in that moment.

After that first day of panic, I calmed down and really got to work. I went to the store again and got more items that I could cook easily on the grill. We got a generator, a ton of gas, gallons of water.

We didn’t know how long we might be without power, so we tried to get as prepared as possible.

(Side note: If you are new here (hey there!), or if you just aren’t aware, we live just outside of Jacksonville, FL.)

Then the storm was coming closer and closer, oh look it might not hit us at all! Oh, look the eyewall is going to go directly over us now (PANIC!). Oh, lookie there, we might be in the clear again, it looks like it’s going to go off the western coast. But, wait that means we will get the worst winds of all!

Sunday night into Monday morning, I was a ball of nerves. I obviously couldn’t sleep thinking one of our many trees would fall on the house. And, I swear I could hear a tornado coming right for us every 20 minutes.

But, we made it! We are okay. All 6 of us… every puppy and kitty accounted for.

I wish I could say the same for our whole state and every island in its path though. I think everyone would agree it could have been a LOT worse. But, there are still people to this day with their homes covered in water or totally destroyed. And some even worse. My heart goes out to every single person and animal that was affected.

I am aware that this post might sound selfish in a way, I do not mean for my experience to come across like that at all. I am just one person telling my story, which I encourage everyone else to do the same as well!

So, what happened after the storm? It was still here early Monday morning until about lunch time with high winds but most of the rain had subsided by then. We cracked open our back door and immediately saw one of our huge trees that had two trunks (I hope that makes sense) had cracked down the middle and one of the sides had fallen down. It is still out there propped up on a smaller tree that we think will go at any second.

That was the worst of it. A TON of debris fell from the trees and it basically looks like a war zone out there. That first day we couldn’t do anything until the winds died down, just in case. So, the next day (Tuesday) we got out there and had a good 6 hours of clean up.

But, then it hit us. We have no power. Our generator cannot be hooked up to our well pump. There is no way for us to shower.

So, you guessed it! Luckily, we had filled both bathtubs up with water before the storm. So, it was just splashing ourselves with ice cold water until the power went back on.

5 days later… the power just went on last night. We couldn’t leave our house until yesterday around noon. Literally, could. not. leave.

First of all, we live in the country. So, we were expecting to be without power for some time. We didn’t even mind that, that’s just how things go. BUT, can’t leave our property?! We were in agony.

There was a downed, possibly live power line touching our driveway. This line was also in standing water. And, after calls to 911, the sheriffs office, trying to get in touch with our electric company, no one would come out here and just see if the line was live or not.

So, Jeremy had to miss two extra days of work because of it and… WE COULDN’T LEAVE! We were in desperation mode until finally, our local fire chief came over.

And, he just stepped over the line, touched it and move it, you know… NO BIGGIE.

So, we were free yesterday to explore and we were like two giddy little kids out and about!

Jeremy was able to go back to work today and now I’m playing catch up!

Okay, my foodie friends, you must be wondering how I cooked up our meals while we couldn’t leave and didn’t have power… amirite?!

Naturally, I had to improvise. We got a lemon of a generator that kept powering off every 15 minutes. So, we lost most everything in the freezer, but we were able to transfer a lot of the things in the fridge to our chest freezer. For some reason, taking the fridge off the generator magically made it work(ish).

So, day 2? I don’t even know, everything is a blur. I made a nice, big, juicy bone-in rib eye steak on the grill for lunch.

Insta-story proof:

This baby made us feel a little bit normal for a while. Except for the dozen scrambled eggs I made for Jeremy to go on the side, hey I had to use up everything! (P.S. This rib eye recipe is in my new cookbook!)

More #hurricaneirma craziness, insta-story edition:

This souffle I made Saturday night, right before the storm hit. Jeremy and I had just finished watching MasterChef where they had to make chocolate souffle, so naturally, we got a hankering for it so I said, why not, jumped up and made them!

I mean…. I have no excuse for this one. We needed breakfast… there was pie in the freezer… so sue me.

And now, my patience readers, we can come full circle to fried chicken!

Yea, what does fried chicken have to do with a hurricane, you are probably asking yourself.

WELL. We had a generator. We have a deep fryer. There was cut up chicken in the freezer, voila!

I hooked up that bad baby and made us fried chicken and french fries one night! No, no insta proof with this one though. I made a step by step story showing the whole process about a month ago, and I thought I wouldn’t make you drool all over again.

But, now you have the recipe, you’re welcome.

So, the moral of this delicious story is, just because you have no power, or even a generator doesn’t mean you still can’t eat well!

Normally, when people think of a power outage, they immediately run to the store and grab cans of soup, beans, and who knows what else. But, you don’t have to do that!

Stay calm, think it over and plan out regular meals that you can either cook up on the grill or with appliances you have that can be hooked up to a generator.

I truly hope that if you were affected by Hurrican Irma (or Harvey, we cannot forget him!) you and your family are safe! Now, I have tortured you enough, here is this amazingly scrumptious Southern Fried Chicken Recipe!

5 from 1 vote

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Southern Fried Chicken

Servings 8 pieces

Author Dana at ThisSillyGirlsKitchen.com

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup buffalo sauce
• 1 whole chicken cut up into parts (or 8 pieces of your favorite parts)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 25 cracks black pepper divided
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 2 cups self-rising flour
• oil for frying

Instructions

1. Preheat oil to 350 degrees. I used a deep fryer, you can also use a heavy bottomed skillet with at least 3 inches of oil up the sides of the pan. DO NOT OVERFILL YOUR SKILLET.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and buffalo sauce. Set aside.
3. Season chicken on all sides with the salt, 5 cracks of the pepper, garlic and onion powders. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, mix the flour and remaining pepper together. Set aside.
5. When the oil is heated, take the chicken piece by piece and dip it in the egg mixture. Let any excess egg fall off. Dip it in the flour mixture and coat on all sides. Shaking off any excess flour.
6. Slowly and carefully place chicken in the hot oil, do not overcrowd the pan. You will need to do this in batches. Dark meat takes 13-14 minutes, white meat takes 8-10 minutes. If needed, turn chicken halfway through for an even golden brown. Chicken is done when internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
7. Let the chicken drain on a sheet tray topped with a wire rack. Sprinkle a little more salt on top right out of the oil. Serve warm.

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