At Home Sweet & Sour Chicken

It has been a little bit of a rough week so far. Peanut is sick. We had taken her to the doctors about a week and a half ago because she was congested. Everything checked out ok, so we went on our merry way. She seemed to get better and then all of a sudden got much worse. I think we’ve slept like three hours the last three nights. Yesterday, we went back to the doctors and found out she has RSV and a double ear infection. POOR peanut. Somehow, despite it all, she manages to smile and dance through the day. Amazing. She reminds me how wonderful life really is.

SO, to say I’ve had little time to cook is somewhat of an understatement . Luckily, I was recently contacted by HOUSE of TSANG® to try out some of their sauces(disclaimer: I received the gift set below for free). I was sent:

-House of Tsang® Bangkok Padang Peanut Sauce

- House of Tsang® General Tsao Sauce

- House of Tsang® Ginger Flavored Soy Sauce

- House of Tsang® Sesame Seed Oil

- House of Tsang® Sweet & Sour Stir Fry Sauce

- House of Tsang® Hibachi Grill Sauce Kobe Steak

- Chopstick Gift Set

Each week for the next month, I will be whipping up a dish using one of the sauces and then giving away the same gift set!

Here is my first recipe using their Sweet & Sour Stir Fry sauce:

 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 lb chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 cups mixed frozen vegetables
• 3/4 cup pineapple, diced (can use canned, drained)
• Desired quantity House of Tsang Sweet & Sour Stir Fry sauce (I used 3 tablespoons)
• Brown rice, cooked (optional)

Directions:

Heat oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium heat. Add chicken and cook through.

Meanwhile, steam vegetables (either in microwave or on the stovetop).

Add vegetables, pineapple and sauce to wok/frying pan. Turn heat to low and cook for approximate five minutes (mixing and making sure sauce does not burn).

Serve as is, or on top of brown rice.

I used these beans from TJs and fresh pineapple:

Do you do takeout?

Shrimp Wonton Soup–Take 1

 

HAPPY FRIDAY! This has been a semi-busy week and I am super excited for the weekend! What do you have on tap?  Tonight, we’re doing dinner with my parents. Saturday morning,  I am teaching Pump (Amelia and Lindsay are coming!) and then we’re hitting up somewhere for food. The rest of the weekend??

Last week, Josh mentioned that he really wanted Wonton soup, but that he wanted a healthier homemade version. Now, I’m not a greasy Chinese food fan, so I’ve never had wonton soup. I researched recipes on the web and came up with my own version (which was served with fried rice):

Ingredients:

• 8 large shrimp, cooked through (I boiled mine) and cooled
• 1- 8 oz can water chestnuts, diced (divided)
• ¼ teaspoon Chinese 5 spice powder
• 1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
• 14 wonton wrappers
• 1 cup shredded cabbage (divided)
• 32 oz low sodium chicken or vegetable broth

Directions:

Chop shrimp into small pieces. In a bowl, combine, shrimp, ¼ can water chesnuts, 5 spice powder, soy sauce and ¼ cup cabbage.

Spread wontons on a towel.

Spread filling evenly between the wonton wrappers.

Wet fingers and twist wrappers to form purses or envelops (envelops are easier), using the moisture to seal them shut.

Heat chicken or vegetable broth over medium heat until broth comes to a simmer. Add ¾ cup cabbage, remaining water chestnuts and purses/envelopes and cook for 10 minutes (until wrappers appear more translucent). Serve! If you’d like, top with chopped green onion.

Now, this soup was tasty….but it wasn’t a real Chinese food takeout tasting soup. Anyone have any good wonton soup recipes to share?? Let me know!

E: Baked Mini Shrimp Egg Rolls & Easy Fried Rice

First, I just wanted to share a couple quick pictures from the weekend. Dinner with my parents Saturday night was at the Blue Crab Raw Bar in Pawley’s Island.  My parents:

 

Me & Josh:

 

Frank is really (knock on wood) starting to feel better. We’ve been taking him on super mini walks and I’ve been feeding him brown rice and turkey. He thanks you all for your well wishes:

   

Ok, onto the recipes! I must say, I’m doing really well with my Friday night dinner successes! This one could not be easier. I prepped the majority of the meal ahead of time to make for a stress free night.

Easy Fried Rice:

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of Success 10 minute brown rice, cooked according to package directions
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 egg + 1 egg white
• 1/2 cup frozen peas, defrosted
• 1/2 cup frozen corn, defrosted
• Desired quantity soy sauce

Directions:

Add oil and garlic to a wok or frying pan. Cook over medium heat for 1-2 minutes. Add egg & egg white, scramble and cook through. Add cooked rice, peas and corn and cook for ~ 5 minutes. Remove from heat and toss in desired amount of soy sauce. Generously serves four as a side dish

Click here for the printable version of the recipe.

The result:

  

 

Baked Mini Shrimp Egg Rolls

I had some leftover wontons and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with them. After doing a general search on the web, I found this recipe at Green Lite Bites. I made just a few adjustments:

Ingredients:

• 8 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 5-oz container water chestnuts, chopped
• 3 oz broccoli slaw
• 20 wonton wrappers
• water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Boil water and cook shrimp for ~ 3-4 minutes until cooked through (no longer gray). Chop shrimp into bits.

Mix chopped shrimp, water chestnuts and broccoli slaw.

 

Place a small amount (~1 tablespoon) of the mixture in the center of each wonton and wrap up like an egg roll (the Green Lite Bites recipe shows how to do so and hers came out much prettier than mine :)). 

Lay on an aluminum covered cookie sheet, sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Spray tops with a bit more spray. Bake for about 20 minutes, turning once.

I served ours with sweet and sour sauce.

Click here for the printable version of the recipe.

   

 

Onto Monday! Business as usual- teaching body pump, working & a little housework. How about you?

M: Mexican Chocolate Pound Cake

It’s Saturday! How has everyone weekend been so far? Mine has been pretty good. Last night the hubs and I hit up Bambu – a fantastic Asian bistro restaurant.

For starters we tried the lettuce wraps…Now, I will say the only lettuce wraps we’ve had to date have been from P.F. Changs. So we started out a little biased. But these were so tasty! They definitely tasted different from P.F. Chang’s, but were just as good.

And we ended with yellowtail rolls and the chef’s special which was a spicy tuna, crab, and cucumber roll topped with fresh local pink snapper, avocado, scallions, and cilantro…FANTASTIC!

Ok, onto this Mexican chocolate pound cake. I’ve been wanting to try this for a while now but never got around to it. I love the idea of Mexican chocolate – basically chocolate with a hint of cinnamon. Two of my favorite things!

This cake turned out amazingly. I mean, seriously, I can’t rave about it enough. It was moist and not overly heavy on the chocolate. It was perfect with the hint of cinnamon. (The only change I made was to cut the recipe in half) And, you know what I’m thinking? Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner right? Yep, this will be made again very soon =)

Mexican Chocolate Pound Cake

from Southern Living

• 1 (8-oz.) package semisweet chocolate baking squares, chopped*
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup chocolate syrup
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Microwave chocolate baking squares in a microwave-safe bowl 1 minute and 15 seconds or until chocolate is melted and smooth, stirring every 15-20 seconds. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric stand mixer 2 minutes or until creamy. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating 5 to 7 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yellow disappears after each addition. Stir in melted chocolate, chocolate syrup, and vanilla until smooth.

Combine flour and next 3 ingredients. Add to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition.

Pour batter into a greased and floured (14-cup) tube pan (or in my case a 8.5 inch loaf pan). Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes (or in my case about 1 hour) or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in pan on wire rack for 10-15 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack and cool completely. Garnish with powdered sugar if desired.

Enjoy!

M: Teriyaki Chicken with Stir Fry Vegetables & Some Other IK Happenings!

First off, a huge THANK YOU to Charleston’s Café for featuring Itzy's Kitchen in their post yesterday! It is no secret of our love for Charleston’s Café…I mean, pick any one of Erica’s or my posts within the last year and you’ll see it’s usually a regular part of our blogging =) If you have been to Charleston and not visited this place, then you just have not truly visited Charleston! The food is always unmatched and the people are truly amazing. Thank you again to our friends at Charleston’s Café!

Secondly (and not quite as exciting lets be honest!), I undertook the seventh of Rachael Ray’s top 10 recipes of 2010! I can’t believe I’ve already gotten this far. Number 7 was the teriyaki chicken legs.

This was definitely one of the 10 that I was a little wary of trying. When I make chicken it usually involves chicken breasts or tenderloins, never a whole leg! But I was surprised at how much I did enjoy this dinner. It is pretty simple – stir fried veggies and teriyaki marinated chicken. It was good, but I know there are other RR recipes that probably would’ve been in my top 10 of the year. I’m not sure I would add this in my regular dinner rotations, but it was fun to try out!

Teriyaki Chicken Legs

from Rachael Ray

8 chicken leg drummers

1 1/2 cups teriyaki sauce

3 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 cup chicken stock

3/4 cup water

3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided

1 cup rice

1 bunch broccolini, trimmed and cut into 3-inch pieces

1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

1 bunch scallions, sliced on an angle

2 large cloves garlic, very thinly sliced

1 inch ginger, grated or minced

Place chicken drummers in a resealable plastic bag with the teriyaki sauce and let marinate 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 400˚F.

Place a cooling rack over a baking sheet and arrange chicken legs on it. Season chicken liberally with coarse black pepper.

Cover chicken legs with foil and roast 20 minutes. Turn legs and roast 10 minutes more. Remove foil and roast an additional 5-8 minutes to darken and crisp. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

While the chicken cooks, bring stock and water with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil to a boil over high heat. Add rice and stir, bring back up to a boil then reduce heat and cover pot. Simmer 18 minutes then fluff with fork.

While chicken roasts the last 10 minutes, bring a few inches of salted water to a boil. Add the broccolini and blanch 2-3 minutes, then drain.

Heat remaining 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a large skillet. When oil is hot, add blanched broccolini, peppers and scallions. Stir-fry 2 minutes, add garlic and ginger, and stir-fry 1 minute more.

Serve chicken legs with stir-fried veggies and rice alongside

Enjoy!

Finally, don’t forget to enter our Stonyfield giveaway! Just visit Erica’s previous post for the details! Be sure to enter by noon on Feb. 20!

I haven’t baked for a while, so I’m definitely feeling the baking bug creeping up…so I’m sure that will be part of a soon-to-come post =) Any fun weekend plans for you?? TGI Friday Eve!

Sweet and Sour

Hello! At work today the internet went down and I could not get access to my email. Since I needed the access for a program I'm working on, I got to work the remainder of the day from home. I was very excited, but Frank wasn't happy that I was interrupting his sleep time :)Once I was done with work, I taught Turbo Kick and ran some errands/did some house work. I then grilled up some chicken and pineapple, and cooked up some broccoli and rice. I mixed them all together.

I then tried to use this recipe to make a sweet and sour sauce. I thought it was good but very tangy (i think tangy is the right word). Josh wasn't a big fan. I am going to continue to search for an awesome sweet and sour sauce recipe- anyone have any good ones (or other sauce recipes they'd like to share)?

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup white or rice vinegar (Note: rice vinegar gives better results)
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 3 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 4 teaspoons water

Directions:

Mix the vinegar, brown sugar, ketchup, and soy sauce together and bring to a boil in a small pot. Mix together the cornstarch and water, add to the ingredients and stir to thicken.

Cashew Chicken

I had a nice busy day at work. Afterwards I went to Body Pump and then taught Turbo Kick. I came home and sat in an Epsom salt bath with Frank. He still has some little skin infections in between his toes so we're going to be doing these soak sessions a lot! After the bath, I made a recipe from the Perdue website for Cashew Chicken. The recipe calls for store bought, pre-cook honey chicken. Instead of using that, I boiled 2 chicken breasts and used them. The recipe goes a little something like this:

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
1 cup chicken broth (low sodium)
2 tablespoons soy sauce (low sodium)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 box (9 ounces) frozen cut green beans, thawed
1/3 cup cashews

Directions:

1. Cook chicken breasts in boiling water until no longer pink. Cut into bite sized pieces.
2. In small bowl, whisk together broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, cornstarch and ginger. In large nonstick skillet, stirring frequently, bring broth mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
3. Add chicken and green beans and heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes.
4. Sprinkle with cashews and serve, if desired, over hot rice.

Enjoy!

Sesame Noodles

I am watching the finale of workout while blogging. I love this show- I know its way over dramatic, but I just love it. There are never enough recipes! Tonight I tried a new recipe that Kalyn blogged about- Rachel Ray's Hot and Cold Sesame Noodles. It was good but a little tangy. I am going to experiment with some other peanut butter based sauces. Here is the recipe, in case you want to give it a go:

1/2 pound spaghetti
1/4 cup Tamari dark soy, eyeball it
1/4 rounded cup smooth peanut butter, softened in microwave 15 seconds on high (Iused low sugar/low fat)
2 tablespoons cider or rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil, eyeball it
2 tablespoons hot sauce
2 cups shredded cabbage and carrot mix, available in produce department (I used broccoli slaw)
1 cup bean sprouts or pea shoots, any variety, available in produce department
3 scallions, chopped on an angle
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 chicken breasts (I added chicken for protein)

Cook chicken breasts, chop into bite sized pieces, set aside to cool.

Cook pasta to al dente, with a bite to it, then cold shock it to stop the cooking process by running it under cold water in colander. Drain the pasta very well.

In the bottom of a large bowl, whisk together soy, peanut butter, vinegar, oil, sesame oil, and hot sauce. Add noodles, chicken and veggies and toss to combine the noodles and coat them evenly with sauce. Sprinkle scallions and sesame seeds throughout the salad and serve.

Beef and Broccoli, 25th Post!!

Woo hoo, its my 25th post! Tonight I made beef and broccoli and it tasted just like Chinese take-out! Gotta love that. I started with this recipe:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1727,154186-237202,00.html

and altered it a bit to get the following recipe:

Beef and Broccoli with Rice

Quick Brown Rice (your favorite brand)

1 tbsp. cornstarch
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 lb. thin beef
Olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced (or desired amount of jarred
1/4 tsp. red pepper, crushed, dried
2 c. broccoli flowerets
1/2 c. beef broth

In a bowl, combine cornstarch and soy sauce with a whisk. Coat thin beef with sauce, cover and refrigerate for 2-4 hours (or overnight). Drain, Reserve marinade (important!!). Cut beef into thin, bite sized strips.

Cook rice according to package directions.

Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to electric skillet or skillet on cook top on medium-low (250 degrees). Add garlic and red pepper. Cook for 2 minutes and remove- place in same bowl as reserved marinade. Add 1 tablespoon oil and broccoli, cook 2 minutes and remove to separate bowl. Add 1 tablespoon oil and beef and cook 3 minutes or until lightly browned. Add beef broth, reserved marinade and garlic/red pepper, bring to boil, stirring constantly, cook for 1 minute. Add broccoli and cook 2-3 minutes or until broccoli is at desired tenderness (make sure you don't burn the sauce). Serve with rice.