Mozarella Cheese Sticks

The other day, I tried this recipe out from the Gimme Some Oven Blog: 

http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/baked-mexican-cheese-sticks-with-salsa/

Ingredients

• 12 sticks part-skim mozzarella string cheese
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup flour
• 5 tbsp Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 2 tsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. garlic salt
• 1/4 tsp. oregano
• cooking spray

I didn't follow the directions to a t since I was only making 8 sticks for me and the little one.  But I basically had the flour, egg, and plain (not italian) bread crumbs.  I had no panko or oregano or garlic salt, but it's ok.  I used sage instead and some garlic powder and it tasted pretty yummy.  I didn't measure it out - just sprinkled the spices onto the bread crumbs and mixed it in.  I think the trick here with these is the more frozen your cheese sticks are the better.  I froze them for an hour as directed.  I didn't cut them in half and put on a plate.  I cut in half while they were still in their original wrapper and threw them in the freezer.  That's one less step you have to do.  Then you unpeel the wrapper of the frozen pre-cut sticks and directly go to dipping in the plain flour, then the egg and then the bread crumb mixture which has all the flavorings and placed them on my non-stick lined bake sheet. 

I baked them in the oven at 400 degrees.  You're supposed to keep them in for 8-10 minutes just as soon as some of the cheese begins to melt and seep out.  I might have left them in a tad too long because when I went to turn them over some of them had already melted into cheese blobs instead of sticks.  I immediately took them out of the oven and pushed the melted cheese close to form and it was fine.  My son enjoyed about 3 of them so I will judge that as a success.  This means I ate the remaining 6 - which means I ate a total of 3 whole mozzarella cheese sticks in one sitting.  Probably not the healthiest thing to do but they tasted that good.