Sweet & Sour Chicken

Back when I was working at A&O, a few co-workers & I went through a very hardcore Chinese take-out phase.  Mostly, we stuck to our favorites: sesame chicken, general tso's, something we called "fun noodles," and sweet & sour chicken.

We ate so much Chinese that I got tired of it.  There was a very long stretch of time when one of my work buddies Lizzy & I felt sick at the thought of one more "lunch special."

It took me awhile before Chinese sounded good again.  Now that Brian & I are married, I cook a lot at home and we don't get take-out very often...  I can't even tell you the last time I ordered Chinese!

But I do cook a fair amount of Asian food...  which is to say, I cook a fair amount of Americanized Asian food.  One of the things I've made several times is sweet & sour chicken.  It is not the most healthy dinner ever, but it has come out well every.single.time. so I thought I would share this easy recipe with all of you:

Ingredients for Chicken:
2-4 chicken breasts...  could also use thighs??
1 egg beaten
salt
pepper
couple tablespoons cornstarch
couple tablespoons vegetable oil

Ingredients for Sauce:
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup pineapple juice
2 T soy sauce
1/2 T garlic powder

Preheat oven to 325

1.  Combine sauce ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Truth be told?  I pretty much eyeball the ingredients for the sauce; I don't find you need to be super precise with them*.  Wisk until it boils and let it bubble down for a couple minutes.

*And, by all means, taste your sauce!!!  As it cooks down more in the oven, it will get MORE sweet & sour-y, so you aren't looking for a strong sauce on the stove.  What you are looking for is a good balance between the sweet & sour.  If it tastes too sweet, add some more vinegar.  Too sour?  I would add more pineapple juice (though you could add more sugar... it just already has a lot of that...).

2.  Slice your chicken into small pieces; about 3/4-1 inch is what I like best.  And I blot the chicken with a paper towel; I don't know that it does anything, but I like to tell myself that it helps the egg stick.

3.  Season chicken with salt & pepper to taste...  I tend to like a lot of pepper.

4.  Coat the chicken pieces with egg

5.  Coat the pieces with cornstarch; I usually put the cornstarch in a gallon Ziplock bag, add the chicken & give it a toss.

6.  Let the chicken hang out on a plate for a couple minutes; it lets the cornstarch do it's thing.

7.  While the chicken is resting, heat the veggie oil over high heat

8.  Fry the chicken until it is pretty brown & golden on all sides.  It doesn't need to be completely cooked; it will have plenty of time in the oven to finish off.

9.  Place the chicken in a single layer in a baking dish (I spray mine with cooking spray to help clean-up), and then pour the sauce over.

10.  Bake for 30-45 minutes...  You want to make sure your chicken is fully cooked and give the sauce more time to thicken and get more delicious.

11.  Serve over rice & with some veggies!!  I served it this night with plain boring white rice, and a frozen bag of broccoli, carrots & edamame.  Usually I go for a fresh veggie, but nothing looked good at the store.  And truthfully, I like boring white rice, so that is usually what we pair with it ;-)

FYI- this also makes really good leftovers :-)

Happy cooking!!

Does any one else enjoy Asian flavors at home???

Lemon Blueberry Sweet Rolls

Has anyone else noticed that lemon-blueberry things have been popping up all over lately?  I've seen a TON of stuff; there is this amazing lemon-blueberry marble cake that I am dying to try.  But since my husband & I can't (shouldn't) eat a whole cake ourselves, I decided to make another l/b recipe that looked great.

Lemon Blueberry Sweet Rolls

It came from Ree Drummond; the Pioneer Woman.  I think I should be friends with her.  I love her blog, and I got one of her cookbooks for Christmas.  She is hilarious, and darn good in the ktichen.  You can find her original recipe on her website, or for just the dough (with which you could make whatever sweet roll flavor you want) you can read her book...  By the way.  One of the best things about either her online recipes or the ones in her book- she posts step-by-step pictures.  Super helpful (I am not that good).

I've been finding that for just two of us, I need to cut down most recipes; otherwise we end up eating a TON of leftovers.  And no matter how good something tastes, when you've had it 4 days in a row, it gets old.  So, one of my biggest cooking challenges is making recipes more couple-friendly...  Here are my modifications, to make less sweet rolls.  And by less, I still mean two 9" pans worth; one for us, one for the boat :-)

For the Dough- which I made the night before
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 pk Active Dry Yeast (or .25 ounces)
4 cups plus 1/2 cups AP flour
1/4 heaping T salt
1/4 heaping t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder

Mix milk, sugar, and oil into dutch oven (or large pot).  Scald the mixture over medium heat (which means heat it until just before boiling).  Remove from heat, and let cool until it is just above luke-warm.  You for sure don't want the milk mixture too hot, or you will kill your yeast.  It should be right about body temperature, or just slightly warmer.  

Pour the yeast over the mixture and then add 4 cups flour.  Fold until totally combined, and cover with a tea towel.  Let it hang out and do its thing for about an hour...  It should smell yeasty and when you come back, it should have risen some.

Add the rest of the dry ingredients (1/2 cup more flour, salt, soda & powder).  Mix until combined, but you don't need to go to town kneading it.  Cover it and stick it in the fridge.  If you don't want to make it the night before, you should probably still refrigerate it for awhile; it will be easier to work with if it's cold.

When you are ready to use it, you'll notice that the dough has probably risen some more.  Punch it down!

Then turn it out onto a floured surface and roll it into a rectangle.  Like.  10ish inches high, and 24ish inches wide.  Give or take.

For the Delicious Filling
1 stick of butter; give or take a couple tablespoons
3/4 cup of sugar
2 lemons
about a cup of blueberries

Melt the butter and set aside.

Zest the two lemons into the sugar and mix well with your fingers.  The sugar will turn a pretty sparkly light yellow.

Pour the butter over the rolled dough, and spread it all over.  You want the whole surface to be coated.

Then sprinkle your lemon sugar all over.  You also want the lemon sugar to be coating the whole surface.

Then sprinkle the blueberries all over.

Roll the dough toward yourself, making a tight log of delicious.

Cut the log with a sharp knife, and then arrange into 2 greased pie pans.  You could also use a 9 x 13 pan.  Cover with a tea towel, and let hang out for 20 minutes or so, to puff up a little.

Bake in a preheated 375 oven for about 20-25 minutes; or until golden brown.

For the Glaze

1 lemon (use one of the ones you zested!)
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup milk
a little melted butter if you have any left from the filling

Combine all ingredents with wisk & pour over hot rolls!


EAT.  ENJOY.  

Bake These Cookies.

So.  Here's a secret:

I don't have a huge sweet tooth.  As I've gotten older, fewer and fewer sweets have been appealing to me.

Want to know an even bigger secret?

Included in that is chocolate...  I like chocolate (or at least tolerate) it in small doses.  Like a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup?  The peanut butter out-weighs the chocolate, and those aren't too bad...  But I just don't like M&Ms.  Or Hershey Kisses.  Or brownies.

Sorry.

I hope we can still be friends.

With that said, there is one thing that I crave pretty consistently  cookies. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal, sugar, or my favorites: snickerdoodles.  I love cookies.  So, since moving to Virginia, I've made about a batch a week for my husband and I...  Is that a lot of cookies??  Don't answer that...  We have shared some with guys on the boat.

This weekend I decided I needed to take a break from eating cookies, but I still wanted to make some for the Mighty Monty crew.  I picked a recipe for some extra chocolaty, brownie-like cookies, that I knew I wouldn't like...  Apparently they were a hit.  And I think you should bake some for someone you love:

I found the recipe on Pinterest (again).  It is by Martha Stewart (who I kinda like... again, I hope we are still friends), and you can see the original here.

... Also...  I didn't get any pictures.  Next time kids.

You need:
8 oz of semisweet chocolate...  Honestly, I estimated using a 12 oz bag of morsels.
4 tablespoons unsalted butter... I wouldn't substitute salted for these.
2/3 cup AP flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp salt, plus a pinch... the original recipe called for 1/2, but my cookies ended up just a touch too salty.
2 large eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate! ... the recipe calls for 12 oz of semisweet chunks.  But I ended up using the rest of my bag of morsels, the remainders of a bag of mini chips, and a 60% cocoa fair trade chocolate bar.  The variety of chocolate was really fun for texture in the cookie.  I'd do a mix again.  Use what you've got!

1.  In a bowl, whisk together your flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

2.  In another bowl (or your stand mixer) beat together your brown sugar, eggs & vanilla.  Beat it until it gets light & slightly fluffy...  It won't be as fluffy as it would if you had fat in there like butter or shortening...  It'll take a couple minutes.

3.  In yet another bowl, melt your 8 oz of chocolate & the butter.  Either in a double boiler, or in 20 second increments in the microwave.  Stop just before the chocolate completely melts; you don't want to scorch it!  Stir until smooth.

4.  Beat your melted chocolate into your sugar/egg/vanilla mix.  Don't over-do it, but you want them to be totally mixed.

5.  Add your dry ingredients, and mix on low until just combined.

6.  Stir in your other chocolate

7.  Now...  you could bake these right away.  But you'll find your dough is more like a batter, and you will get really flat (but still delicious) cookies.  Or you can wait 15ish minutes for the melted chocolate in it to cool, and you'll get a more truffle-like dough and less-flat cookies!!

8.  Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes.  I rotated half way through, because my oven isn't very even.

9.  Let cool about 10 minutes on the cookie sheet before moving to a wire rack.

10.  Eat some very chocolaty & chewy cookies!!  You probably should have a big glass of milk handy!

Wild Rice Casserole

Last Saturday my husband was on duty, which meant he was stuck on the boat for dinner.  Rather than spend the evening apart, I went and joined him on the Montpelier for a couple of hours!  It was my first time spending a significant amount of time on board.

I found a delicious looking wild rice casserole that I was waiting to try.  Brian's mom makes the best wild rice soup, and this looked like it would have some similar flavors.  Bringing my husband dinner at work for the first time seemed like a good time to test this recipe!

I found it via Pintrest, by picky-palate.com; you can view the original recipe here :-)

You need:

-3ish carrots- diced

-3ish stalks celery- diced

-some chopped onion... I used less than the original recipe calls for... maybe about a quarter cup?

-3 cloves minced garlic

-2 or 3 chicken breasts ... cooked & shredded.  This would maybe also be good with thighs.   

-cooked wild rice (I used a combo of wild rice & brown rice)

-couple tablespoons olive oil

-2 cups of cheddar cheese

-2 cups chicken broth

-half a stick of butter (4 tablespoons)

-1/4 cup flour

1.  Cook your chicken & rice...  I poached my chicken in some broth, butter, parsley & cracked black pepper.  

2.  Heat the oil in a skillet, and add celery, onion & carrots...  Cook for about 10 minutes.  Stirring pretty constantly, until tender.  I like mine a little more crisp, so you might want to cook yours a little longer if you like mushy. 

3.  Add the garlic, and stir another minute or so.

4.  Take off heat, and add chicken & rice.

5.  In a medium sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat.  Add flour and WHISK WHISK WHISK!!  Once you've got your roux on, add salt & pepper.  Then start slowly whisking in your broth.  Whisk the whole time.  I am not kidding.  

6.  Keep whisking, and let your sauce thicken & reduce slightly.  Then add most of your cheese.  Keep up the whisking.  Your arm is pretty tired now, huh??

7.  Add your sauce to the chicken/rice/veggie mix.  It is gonna look AWESOME!

8.  I am sure you could eat this as is.  But do you want to make it even better??  Spread this into a 9x13 baking dish, and sprinkle it with the rest of your cheese.  Bake it in a pre-heated, 350 degree oven, for 25 to 30 minutes.  Or until the cheese is melted and the casserole is bubbly.

9.  EAT!! ...  This was really tasty!  It made A LOT, but the leftovers are great too!!  Though, for just Brian & I, I think I am going to try to cut this recipe in half...  Or.  Does anyone know if something like this would freeze well??  

Penne with Roasted Asparagus

Have I said how much I love Pintrest??  It makes finding new recipes super easy!  I found one for this Penne with Roasted Asparagus awhile ago, and finally tried it this week:

You can view the original post here; it comes from foodandwine.com.  I followed it fairly closely, but I did adjust the ingredients so that it was better portioned for two and tried to cut the butter way back.  

1/2 pound fresh asparagus

1 T Olive Oil

Sprinkle of Salt

Fresh ground black pepper

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp brown sugar

1/2 pound penne pasta (although bow ties would be great too!)

3 T butter; cut into pieces

1/3 c Parmesan cheese  

1.  Heat the oven to 400.  Trim & discard the ends of asparagus.  Cut the asparagus into 1"-2"pieces, and place on baking sheet.  Coat with olive oil and salt & pepper to taste.  Roast for 10 minutes, until tender; turning once.

2.  Pour balsamic into small sauce pan and reduce FOREVER!  When it reduces to about 2-3 tablespoons, take off heat and add brown sugar & a couple grinds of pepper.

3.  Cook pasta until desired tenderness, drain.

4.  To pasta, add butter, asparagus, cheese & balsamic sauce.  Eat while hot & enjoy!!

I served this alongside baked chicken breasts (which also happen to need a 400 degree oven; about 25 minutes, so I started them first).  Seasoned them with Italian spices, and more parmesan cheese.