Diet defiance: chicken fried steak

To spit in the face of all diets, I (almost) cooked and (almost) ate chicken fried steak last night. Up until that point I had done neither, so it was a real experience for me.

Recipe from Real Simple (which makes the meal a tad less tacky, I suppose):

Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds sirloin steak (1 inch thick), cut into 4 pieces

Salt and pepper

1 C buttermilk

1 C flour

¼ C canola oil

Directions:

• Pound each piece of steak into a ½-inch thickness. (Really pound this steak down so it's nice and thin.) Season with ½ tsp each salt and pepper.
• Dip the steak first in the buttermilk, then the flour. Fry the steak in two batches in the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until golden, 2-3 minutes per side. (Make sure the oil is good and hot).

We served this little doozie with a side of home fries and scrambled eggs (at my husband's request). You can call it a breakfast-for-dinner night.

Source: buzzfeed.com

So here's where the 'almost' part comes in. I failed at chicken frying the steak: the buttermilk/flour coating fell off, the steak was too thick, the oil wasn't hot enough, it was just bad news. So husband rescued this damsel in distress and cooked the remaining pieces of meat outside on the grill. This actually made the steak a lot healthier (but don't worry, I still loaded up on home fries and eggs!). Husband did try my attempted fried steak, and he said it wasn't terrible.

I'm now in the almost-successfully-cooked-but-didn't-eat-chicken-fried-steak club, will you join me? Please....I don't want to be fat and alone.

Oh and, P.S., I would not recommend this recipe.....out of 5 stars, I'm giving it 2. Sorry Real Simple, love your mag, but sometimes your recipes, hmmmm, how can I put this, they aren't 'real simple.' I'd take tacky over a badly constructed recipe any day.