Your basic, but tasty stir fry.

Got the urge to make a stir fry to use up the bag of broccoli slaw I used for a salad the other day.  I also had the majority of a leftover bag of fresh snow peas from when I brought it to Pizza Hut last night to go with my salad bar.  What?  I bring my own bottle of light dressing too!
Anyway, I made an orange chicken stir fry last week and the kids HATED it.  Reid and I loved it.  I will never, ever buy the bottled stir fry sauce again.  For one thing, it's SOOOOOO easy to make it from scratch.  And secondly, have you ever looked at the list of ingredients on one of those bottles?  BLEH!  So I thought I'd try a non-sweet stir fry tonight.  It still had brown sugar in it, but only 2 tablespoons as opposed to the 1/3 cup from the orange.  This uses cornstarch for thickness instead of all that sugar.

I usually use a sirloin and cut super-thin against the grain and it comes out great.  This time flank was on sale so I grabbed it.  I asked the lady at the Martin's meat counter to cut it "super thin for stir fry."  I was so f'ing mad when I came home and unwrapped it- the pieces were about 1/2" thick.  Gross.  I tried as hard as I could to slice the strips in half.  Use whichever cut you like, just slice across the grain so it doesn't come out like shoe leather.  This took me so many bad meals to learn.  Oh, and sorry about the two brownish pieces.  I started to put them in the marinade then thought "oops!" and took them back out to photograph.  Why I didn't just leave them out of the photo I can not figure out.  It didn't look gross in person but in the photo it's kind of squicky looking.  I don't have any kind of photoshop on my new computer so you'll have to deal with it.



You can use what veggies you like.  Normally I would do a broccoli/onion/green pepper combo but this is what I had tonight- broccoli slaw, onion and snow peas.  Yummy!



I made a marinade with soy sauce, just a bit of brown sugar, ginger (I just can't buy fresh- it looks like dried poop), and some corn starch to thicken (you can use flour if you don't have corn starch).  The original recipe called for 1/3 c. soy sauce and some water.  Screw that!  I used 1/2 C. soy sauce because I loooooove salty!  Toss the meat in and let it sit for a spell while you do you veggies.



Heat up your big pan.  I have a non-stick pan so I just use a teensy bit of oil, like a teaspoon.  Toss in your veggies and cook the for a few minutes.  If you don't like them crispy and bright green, keep them in a bit longer.  I like them crisp!



Take out the veggies and put them in a bowl and set aside.  Put your marinated meat in the pan.  I could only fit about half of it in the pan at a time.  Cook without stirring so it gets good and browned, then flip and cook the other side.




Doesn't it look good when you flip it over?  Mmmm, steamy.  :o)




Throw the cooked meat on a plate and cook the other half the same way- but don't dump out the marinade sitting in the bottom of the bowl!  I got the idea of throwing thickly sliced green onions on at this point from another food blog.  I wish I had waited until the very end and sliced them thin and added them on top.  I just didn't like it this way.  But the picture is pretty. :o)




Once the second batch of meat is cooked, dump the rest of the marinade from the bowl and stir around to kill all the raw meat cooties.  Add in the rest of the cooked meat and veggies and stir until it's all hot and thick.  Don't cook too long or your veggies will get soggy.



Throw it on a Santa plate and put some fried noodles on top in the hopes any annoyingly picky shits will actually eat it.





Yeah, that's what I thought.




Ya know, Tallulah was always my favorite! :o)  Wow, I have a lot of crap on my table.  That giant brown UPS packet is the Blik prize i won last week!




1-2 pounds beef (sirloin, flank, or use chicken... whatever you like)  I like more veggies than meat in my stir fry so I stay close to 1 pound.
1/2 c. soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tablespoons flour or corn starch
4-6 cups mixed veggies- snow peas, broccoli, onion, peppers, broccoli slaw, napa cabbage, thinly sticed carrots (yuck) Whatever your faves are...
Oil for pan

1. Mix soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger and flour.  Add the meat and stir to combine then set aside.
2. Heat pan with oil over med-high heat.  Add veggies and cook for a minute or two then remove from pan and set aside.
3. Add the meat into the pan in a single layer.  You will probably have to do this in two batches.  Brown one side, then turn and brown the other.  Remove from pan and cook the other half the same way.
4. Pour the leftover mariande on the meat in the pan.  Add the first batch of meat and the veggies in the pan.  Stir for a minute and let it thicken and heat through.  Serve over rice and listen to your kids bitch about dinner.

Chicken and dumplings

I made chicken and dumplings last night.  They turned out soooooooo good!!!

First, get the usual suspects together.


Cut 'em up really small.


Heat up some oil in a big pot.  Some use vegetable oil but I use Rachel Ray's method of heating up 2 TBSP of olive oil, then melting 2 TBSP of butter into it.


Season some boneless/skinless chicken breasts w/ salt and pepper then drag them through some flour.  Put them in the pot and brown them on both sides.  Don't cook them all the way through, just get them brown.


Take them out and set them aside.  Can you believe how freaking BIG these are?  I would hate to run into this chicken in a dark alley.  And don't they look good?  Looks like they have crispy skin on them.  Nope, it's just from browning them in the pan.


Now throw your veggies in the pot and cook them until they start to get soft but are not mush.


Add some spices.  You don't need too much because the veggies and the bits that cooked off the chicken give it lots of flavor.  I got the idea using tumeric from the pioneer lady's recipe.  Never used it before but I sure glad I did this time!!!


Add 6 cups of chicken broth.  See all those dark bits that rise to the top?  Yum!


Toss your chicken back in.  Breast meat sometimes gets dry but you're kind of poaching it in there and they won't dry out.  Cover and simmer for about 15-20 min.


Make your dumplings.  Ugh with the people telling you to make them from scratch.  It's Bisquick all the way baby!  I make the recipe from the back of the box and throw in some dried parsley just like mom did.


Take the chicken out and shred it then throw it back in.  I shit you not, it tastes like KFC chicken without all the grease, skin and blubber.  I think I might have figured out their secret recipe.


Scoop out the dough and just plop it right into the simmering pot.  Put the lid on, but leave a crack for steam, and let them cook for whatever the Bisquick box says- I think like 15 minutes.  Then it's done and YUMMY!!!!


I made a simple salad with a bag of broccoli slaw and Vidalia Onion vinagrette.  It was good!  Especially after it sat for a bit in the fridge.


Eat up!

2 TBSP olive oil

2 TBSP butter

½ cups flour

3-4 bones skinless chicken breasts

salt and pepper

2 diced carrots

3 diced celery stalks

1 diced medium sized onion

1/2 tsp ground thyme

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp

6 C chicken broth

Bisquick dumplings

Season chicken with salt and pepper, then drag through flour.

Heat oil in large pot over medium high heat. Melt butter into oil. Brown chicken on both sides, remove and set aside.

Don’t drain the oil.  Add the diced veggies, stir and cook for 5 or so minutes until soft but not mushy.  Stir in garlic powder, tumeric and thyme. Add chicken broth.  Once combined, add the chicken back in. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

This is a good time to make the dumplings.  Follow the recipe on the Bisquick box.  

Remove chicken from pot and shred or chop up the chicken.  Put back into pot.  Now, most of the recipes I looked at said to put in cream or half and half at this point.  I just don’t use that stuff so I did add about 1/2 cup of skim milk at this point.  I don’t know if it did any good but since every chicken and dumplings recipe called for some kind of cream I felt like I had to put it in.  :o) Stir to combine.

Drop spoon of dumpling dough into the simmering pot. Cover pot halfway and continue to simmer for 15 minutes. 

Enjoy!!!

My very first foodie blog. :o)

Be careful what you wish for!  So many have told me that I should start a baking/cooking blog that I finally gave in and decided to put one together.

My favorite baking/cooking blogs are the ones that have step by step photos and comments to go along with the photos.  I am not trying to copy or steal anyone else's ideas.  Everyone pretty much food-blogs the same way.  And I mean, there are only so many ways to make and write about a chocolate chip cookie or chicken and dumplings.  I see a recipe and tailor it to how my family would like it and that's what will end up here in my blog.  I will journal in it occassionally too.  I used to have a Livejournal but never kept up with it.  We'll see if I actually journal in this one.

Well, I hope you enjoy reading my journal as much as i enjoy writing in it.  Hmmm, I guess I am assuming I will enjoy writing in it?  :o)