Recipe: Mandarin Chicken (complete!)

I think I may have finally perfected it last night!  This may be due in part to the fact that I sucked it up and asked The Bastard for advice, but overall it didn't need much tweaking.  It may need a little more cornstarch, though... I'm still a little iffy on the consistency.

Ingredients:
2-3 chicken boneless skinless breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp (or to taste) crushed red pepper flakes
1 can (11 oz.) of mandarin oranges
1/2 c sugar
2 1/2 tbsp of cornstarch
1 sweet onion, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
2 c broccoli, steamed
1 can water chestnuts
1 c rice, steamed
Olive oil

Combine soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, and juice from mandarin oranges.  Place chicken in a bowl and pour just enough of the mixture over it to cover the chicken.  Marinate in the fridge for about 15 minutes.  Set the rest of the sauce aside.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and sautee onion and pepper slices until onions begin to caramelize and peppers are tender.  Drain chicken and add to skillet.  Cook until chicken is no longer pink in the middle.  Add water chestnuts and stir-fry for an additional 2 minutes.

Add sugar and cornstarch to remaining sauce, then pour the sauce and mandarin oranges into the skillet and bring to a boil.  Heat for about 2 minutes or until sauce thickens and oranges fall apart.  Pour over rice and broccoli and serve.

Makes about 4 servings.

Recipe (sort of): Mandarin Chicken - needs improvement!

It was my turn to cook last night. I had fully intended on finding something new and creative to make on my lunch break yesterday, but with last week's "snowpocalypse" I'm completely behind on work stuff and didn't get much of a break at all. Therefore, when I got home at 6:15, I had a bunch of thawed chicken but no plan.

Desperately tearing apart my fridge and pantry, I found the beginnings of a Chinese-style orange chicken dish, so I punched a few ingredients into Allrecipes.com and found a Mandarin beef stir-fry recipe.  Bingo!  Just needed a little bit of improvising, right?  I'll tell you what I did, then what went wrong.  However, I think I'm actually on the right track with this one for once!

Ingredients:
2-3 chicken boneless skinless breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes (it was actually a handful of chicken strips, but that's about what it comes out to in breasts)
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 can of mandarin oranges (10oz, I think?)
1/2 c sugar
1 sweet onion, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
2 c broccoli, steamed
1 c rice, steamed
Olive oil

Combine soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and juice from mandarin oranges.  Place chicken in a bowl and pour just enough of the mixture over it to cover the chicken.  Marinate in the fridge for about 15 minutes.  (Don't put the oranges in the marinade - trust me on this.  Just set them aside.)  Set the rest of the sauce aside.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and sautee onion and pepper until onions begin to caramelize and peppers are tender.  Drain chicken and add to skillet.  Cook until done.

(Here's where it went wrong)  Add sugar to remaining sauce, then pour the sauce and mandarin oranges into the skillet and bring to a boil.  Heat for about 2 minutes or until sauce thickens.  Pour over rice and broccoli and serve.

So what went wrong?  When I read the original recipe that I based this off of, I could have sworn I had corn starch.  However, I got to the part that said, "Combine the cornstarch and reserved marinade until smooth," searched for the cornstarch, and panicked.  I was out and that must be what thickens the sauce!  I tried to think of what thickens sauces, but what the hell do I know about cooking?  And I'll be damned if I ask The Bastard since I was so fucking confident walking into the kitchen that I didn't need help with this meal.  I mean, my pride was on the line here, people!  (Speaking of which, I rest my case about the Taurus thing.)


I finally settled on sugar because I knew that worked; I just didn't know what quantity.  I started with 1/4 c, then bumped it up another 1/4 when that didn't work.  It thickened just slightly, but not nearly to the extent I was going for.  Finally after about 10 minutes of simmering, I said, "Fuck it," turned off the burner, and started scooping the meat, onions, and peppers into the bowl with the rice and broccoli.  I slowly poured the sauce into the bowl so I wouldn't end up with rice soup.  After staring at it for a few seconds, trying to work up my courage, I tasted it.


Hoars, it was actually good!  Slightly sweet, slightly tangy - I actually improvised something that tasted good, and I didn't even set the kitchen on fire!  This is a major kitchen breakthrough for me.  There's just one thing left to sort out:  fucking sauces!  How do they work???  I don't want to ditch the sugar, so would I need to add the whole 2 tbsp of cornstarch?  Or am I off base about that being the thickening agent?  If anyone wants to help me out on this, hit me up in the comments.

Recipe: Crock Pot Chicken Tacos

We made Crock Pot Chicken Tacos for dinner Friday night.  And of course, being us, we improvised a bit.  This was mostly due to the fact that we were out of salsa, Aldi didn't have any, and Kroger was packed because we did our grocery shopping the day before the huge ice storm.  Click the link for the actual recipe; here's what we did:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can of diced tomatoes
About a dozen slices of jarred jalapeno
1 large sweet onion
1 can of whole kernel corn
1 packet of taco seasoning
1/2 c of water

Mix it all up, set it on low, and go to work.  The Bastard stirred it every couple of hours since it was still too icy for him to get to work on his motorcycle, but this may have been more out of boredom than necessity.  After 8 hours, the chicken pretty much falls apart just while stirring it.  I probably didn't need to add the water as it was a little... drippy.  Also, the jalapenos might have been overkill as our stomachs didn't really appreciate the spicy bombardment the next day.  However, I thought the flavor was awesome, and I'll probably do it again using salsa.

Dinner: Pot Roast... Sort Of...

We tried the first of the crock pot recipes last night.  Here's what we did:

2 lbs (approx) stew beef
1 very large baking potato, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 16-oz. bag of baby carrots
1 sweet onion, cut into chunks
3 cups beef broth
1 cup water
Basil and parsley (to taste)

Mix all of these ingredients in a large crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours.

Verdict: It was good, but not great.  Next time, I think I'll cut out the water and add onion soup mix.  I'll let you know how it goes.  The cook time was dead on, though - the beef was done and falling apart, and the veggies weren't mushy.

New Year's Resolution: Food Edition

For the most part, I think New Year's Resolutions are a load of crap.  Most people do what they say they're going to do for about a week and then quit.  Hell, look at me: it took me a week just to make a New Year's resolution!  However, The Bastard, who is a huge LifeHacker fan, sent me links to a bunch of articles.  One of these really got me thinking:  The Bastard and I are both employed now so we're not home much; we have a tiny kitchen and not much time to spend in it; and we have a rice cooker, crock pot, and George Foreman grill.  So why the hell do we eat so much frozen pizza?  (As you can probably tell, we did not stick with P90X, although I would still recommend it to the very determined.)  We really need to start eating better, and lack of time and space is no longer an excuse.

So I'm going to share some of these sites that I found through the link above and, if I actually make myself sit down and do it, also write some reviews as I try these recipes out.  I might even actually take some pictures for once.

Potato chips in the microwave (just on principal)
Five-ingredient crock pot meals
Crock pot chicken tacos (these just look awesome!)
George Foreman recipes

If you guys have any other quick/easy/cheap recipe suggestions, let me know - bonus if they're healthy, too.  Also, feel free to try some of these with me and give your own reviews in the comments sections.

Recipe: Protein Shake!

We didn’t buy the protein drinks from Beachbody, but did find a good whey protein powder and started making our own protein shakes. I think it's the Kroger brand.

1 scoop strawberry-flavored protein powder
1 cup low-fat milk
1 cup frozen strawberries

Stick all that in the blender and mix until it’s nice and smooth - tastes just like a strawberry milkshake!

We’re also going to try making our own protein bars this weekend so I'll let you know how that goes.

Love,
The Redhead

Recipe: Chicken Fajitas

Chicken fajitas (for 2 - with probably way too much chicken!)

ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 white onion
1/2 red bell pepper
Tortillas (we bought “garden veggie tortillas” - more veggies than the corn and less carbs than the flour)
1 packet fajita seasoning
olive oil

Cut the chicken, onion, and pepper (remove the seeds first!) into strips. Heat about 1 tbsp of olive oil in a skillet and cook the chicken, drain, then sautee the onions and peppers. With everything in the pan, follow the instructions on the seasoning packet to make the sauce. Stir constantly to make sure everything gets coated. Don’t worry - the sauce thickens as it cooks!

Wrap it up with a tortilla and eat! YUM!