Sweet Chicken Stir-Fry

I like to eat. But I like to be healthy. I don’t like eating boring healthy. I still have a ways to go on getting all our meals as healthy as we need them to be, but some things will always be the same. I'm not going to make meals that are boring, just because they are healthy. And I do NOT to believe that making healthy meals means having to make fancy meals that are very time-consuming. Not that I don’t love to splurge once in a while, and take a long time to make a difficult and delicious dinner, but yummy can be easy, too. That’s my biggest beef with “easy” cooking - too often, it is easy, quick, and fatty.

We LOVE this meal. It’s easy to do, very low in fat, but it tastes indulgent and yummy. Again, I wish I could take full credit for this, but I combined a couple of different recipes, and then tweaked them to our liking. Feel free to try the originals, too. 

Sweet Chicken Stir-Fry

1 red pepper, sliced

1 cup baby carrots, sliced

1 can sliced water chestnuts

½ medium onion, sliced

1 tsp sesame oil

¼ tsp minced garlic

salt and pepper

Sauté pepper, carrots, and water chestnuts for a few minutes. Add onions, salt and pepper. Sauté for a few more minutes, then add garlic, and finish cooking until veggies are crisp-tender. Remove from the pan and set aside in a bowl. Cover to keep warm. 

¾ cup orange juice

1 tbsp cornstarch

¼ tsp ginger

2 tbsp honey

3 tbsp soy sauce

Combine all in a bowl. Set aside for later. 

1 chicken breast, cut into 1 inch chunks (as uniform as possible)

1 tbsp wheat flour

2 tbsp cornstarch

salt and pepper

ginger, paprika, cayenne, garlic powder

1 tsp sesame oil

Combine flour and cornstarch in a bowl. The cornstarch gives a good crisp coating, but combining it with some flour helps it to distribute better. Add spices to your liking.

Start the chicken only after the veggies are done. Using a spoon (and probably your fingers), distribute the coating onto the chicken. You don’t have to use it all, but make sure all the pieces are coated.

In the same sauté pan from the veggies, heat the other tsp of sesame oil over medium heat. Make sure the oil is evenly distributed around the pan. When hot, use your fingers to place all the chicken in a single layer inside. Let it cook until crisp and browned, and then turn over and do the same for the other side. Cut open the thickest pieces to check for doneness. (please excuse the next few pictures - my camera died, and the hubby's iPod didn't make my picture-taking skills any better)

Once chicken is done, add the veggies back to the pan. Pour in the sauce and stir to combine. Let it cook for a few minutes – the cornstarch in the sauce and the residue from the chicken coating will thicken the sauce.

Serve over rice. We can’t afford the empty calories of white rice, so we use brown rice. If you’re like me and making brown rice (not instant) took me many, many failed attempts, use this method. It works. And halving the recipe makes just enough for the three of us for one meal.

We didn’t have any this time, but this is awesome sprinkled with cashews. We did have green onions, which is really yummy, too.

For the prep, slice veggies and chicken earlier in the day, and keep in the fridge. Prepare flour mixture and orange juice mixture before starting any of the actual cooking. If you want to, you can even cook the rice earlier in the day, and keep in the fridge until ready for it. Just heat up the individual portions in the microwave before adding the stir-fry.

It’s healthy, tastes great, and is really easy to prepare, I promise. Please try this!

Whole Wheat Zucchini Waffles

With the kiddo’s new dietary needs, we’ve been working on trying to fit as many vegetables into our meals as possible. The one pain-in-the-butt is breakfast. Fruit is good, but it still needs to be limited for him, so I ask you: how in the world do you get a good majority of vegetables into breakfast???

Well, this recipe is a start. It’s still not a majority of vegetable (versus the other ingredients), but it’s dang good, and really healthy, too. This recipe is just a variation of the hundred’s of others like it out there on the web. I just adjusted it a bit (of course) to suit my preferences. I may try adding a little more zucchini next time, just to see if I can, and maybe some applesauce instead of some oil, but really, it’s very good for you as is.

Whole Wheat Zucchini Waffles

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

pinch of nutmeg

1 tbsp brown sugar

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

2 small or 1 large zucchini

1 egg

1 ½ cups skim milk, divided

1 tbsp vanilla

2 tbsp oil

Wash and dry the zucchini, and chop into large coins, leaving the skins on. It really creates a nice effect, the little flecks of green that end up in the batter. Trust me.

Combine zucchini, ½ cup of milk, and the rest of the wet ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth. You should have about 2 cups of liquid at this point.

I ended up adding at least ½ cup more milk, or more, to the batter to get the consistency I wanted for waffles. This amount of liquid wouldn’t have cut it. I would add the zucchini mixture to the dry ingredients first, and then add as much milk as you think is necessary to get a good waffle-batter consistency. Next time, I’m just going to add most of the milk straight to the blender, since I know how it turned out for me. Do what you think will work best.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and combine. The batter may look a little weird until you get all the milk added in, but trust me, the finished product looks great.

Using whatever measurement works best for your waffle iron, bake the waffles. Mine takes ½ cup at a time for two waffles, so we got a good 12 waffles out of this batch. Serve with butter, syrup, or fruit. Personally, we like to heat up frozen strawberries or raspberries in the microwave with a tsp or so of sugar, and then mash them up to serve over waffles. So yummy, and much better for you than syrup.

These are awesome! They taste almost like zucchini bread, but not so rich that you don’t want it for breakfast. And with the whole wheat and the zucchini, they are nice and dense, but still light enough for a good waffle. Pleeeeease try these, especially before your gardens run out of zucchini (which, from what I hear, is next to impossible…..?) =)

Caprese Pasta Casserole

            Normally, if I was making a tomato-cream sauce, I would be all gung-ho about making it from scratch, simmering it all day, blending it in a blender, etc., but this just works so easily, that I’m okay throwing that all out the window =) This is super easy to do (apart from the chopping), and is really, really, really yummy. We love spaghetti, but this is just enough different and the same.

            This calls for cherry (or grape) tomatoes, and PLEASE don’t substitute regular! Those perfect little tomatoes have so much sweetness when they are baked, and regular tomatoes don’t cut it. Also, I have some OCD tendencies, one of them being that I can’t stomach the yucky, slimy, seed-y parts of the tomatoes, so during naptime I will literally spend half an hour squeezing all that stuff out of my teeny tiny tomato halves. But if it doesn’t bother you, please don’t take the time. I’m weird, and I know it.

Caprese Pasta Casserole

1 lb grape tomatoes, halved (and seeded, if preferred)

4 oz fresh mozzarella

1 bunch fresh basil leaves, chopped

1-2 cups cooked and shredded chicken

2 ½ cups uncooked, whole wheat pasta

1 ¼ cups your favorite tomato sauce

½ cup half and half

*1 tbsp parmesan cheese (optional)

            Sometime earlier in the day, chop (and seed?) the tomatoes. Cook and shred the chicken. Chop half of the mozzarella into very small pieces, so it will be evenly distributed throughout the dish. Slice in the other half of the mozzarella into very thin slices – these will go on top of the casserole. It doesn’t seem like much cheese, but fresh mozzarella is higher in fat, and a little goes a long way, as long as you use it wisely.

            Also chop the fresh basil leaves into small ribbons. The “official” way to do this is chiffonade, which sounds fancy, but is very easy to do and actually easier to do than just randomly chopping the leaves. Once I have the basil cut, I put it in a small plastic bag, and it will keep for a few hours before I have to use it, but it won’t last too much longer.

            Cook the pasta to the doneness you prefer. 2 ½ cups worked great for shell pasta, but if you are using penne or curly pasta, the measurements might have to be a little different to get the right amount. Experiment. 

            Once the pasta is done and drained, heat the tomato sauce in a saucepan over medium heat until it’s warm. Add the half and half and combine. Dump in the pasta, chicken, tomatoes, CHOPPED mozzarella, and the basil leaves, and stir well. 

            Pour into sprayed baking dish, and top with the SLICED mozzarella (and parmesan, if you'd like). 

           Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove and let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.

            Again, not the prettiest picture, but it works =) Couple of notes: this makes about 3 meals for the three (2 ½) of us, especially if we have a salad along with it (which we always do). In my opinion, 1 lb of grape tomatoes is barely enough to get by, but I really, really like tomatoes. I’d love to try adding some cooked mushrooms to this, or maybe some other vegetables, but I haven’t done it yet. Let me know if you do!

            Don’t be put off by the fresh mozzarella and the half and half. The amounts are small enough that the fat content per serving isn’t thrown out of proportion at all. I considered using skim milk instead of the half and half, but the consistency and the flavor just isn’t the same. And 4 oz of mozzarella is the same as half a bag of pre-shredded, or 1 cup. Really not as much as it seems. If you make any other changes and they work, let me know! Enjoy!