Spicy sweet and sour chicken with sushi rice

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The Yankee went back for seconds!

I found this recipe here and here, then went about a couple modifications; The Yankee and I were in the mood for something with a little more kick, more like General Tso’s chicken than sweet and sour. The Kiddo, shockingly, was in the mood for Cheerios.

You will need:

For the chicken

  • 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • salt and pepper
  • garlic powder
  • 1 cup cornstarch
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 cup canola oil

For the sauce

  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 4 tablespoons ketchup
  • ½ cup vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • crushed red pepper, to taste

Now then:

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
  2. Cut boneless chicken breasts into chunks — a little more than bite sized, but small enough to easily pick up with chopsticks is ideal
  3. Season with garlic, salt and pepper
  4. Put one cup cornstarch in a brown paper bag (double-bagged just in case is great), and throw your chicken pieces in there; roll the top down tightly and shake to coat all chicken
  5. Now put your beaten eggs in a container with a lid; shake off any excess cornstarch from the chicken pieces and put in the egg; close lid and shake to coat with egg
  6. Pan fry in canola oil until brown but not cooked through
  7. Place in a single layer in a baking dish — I lined mine with foil for easier clean-up
  8. Whisk together sauce ingredients and pour over chicken

Now bake at 325, turning chicken every ten minutes or so, for about half an hour or until chicken is cooked through. When chicken is done, turn the oven to broil to really sizzle the sauce and reduce it a bit, and give the chicken some great texture. Be sure to turn the chicken once to crisp up both sides.

If your little heart so desires (mine did), you can make up a second batch of sauce and simmer it on the stove till it’s reduced.

I served this with sushi rice and it was delicious! Not as quick as take-out, obviously, but great quality and no MSG. Two thumbs up for that!

Whey biscuits

baking, breakfast, kids 5 Comments

After all that yogurt straining, I ended up with quite a bit of whey. Time to make biscuits!

I used:

  • 2 cups King Arthur AP flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp baking powder
  • 1/4 cup powdered milk (for extra protein and creaminess)
  • 1/2 tsp instant yeast
  • 2 Tbsp shortening
  • 2 Tbsp cold butter
  • 1 cup whey

I do these in the food processor — they’re ridiculously fast that way. Toss in the flour, salt, baking powder, powdered milk and yeast and pulse a couple times. Cut in the shortening and butter and pulse about 8 times. Pour in the whey and let it sit a minute to soak in, then pulse till mostly blended — maybe 5-8 times?

Now pat out the dough on a floured surface and cut with a floured cutter. My cast iron was otherwise occupied, so I baked these on parchment paper on a cookie sheet:

Bake at 400 degrees F for about ten minutes. See them poofing up?

Get ’em while they’re hot!

The finished product:

The Kiddo loves these with Sunbutter on them for lunch; I love ’em with butter and honey. Fluffy tasty goodness!

Toddler yogurt/yogurt cheese: in the thick of it

baking, breakfast, kids 5 Comments

As discussed, The Kiddo loves him some yogurt. The problem is that it’s so creamy and fabulous the he sometimes has issues keeping it on the spoon all by himself; all by yourself is very important when you’re two.

Enter the cheesecloth! By straining out some of the whey from the yogurt you make it thicker, therefore easier for a little one to manage with a spoon.

I lined my gravy pitcher with cheesecloth, then spooned the yogurt onto the cheesecloth, which is over the strainer. I folded the cheesecloth over the yogurt to keep it covered, and put it in the fridge overnight.

If you want to hurry the process along (hungry toddler?), you can add a little weight to the equation:

For this setup I lined a mesh strainer with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. I spooned in the yogurt and folded the cheesecloth over it, then put a clean soup mug on top of that. In the soup mug went an unopened can (of Arthur O’s, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have any specific magical yogurt powers). The weight of the can compresses the yogurt and speeds up the whole straining/thickening process.

The longer you let the yogurt sit in either set-up, the more whey will drain out, and the thicker the yogurt will be. Regardless, you’ll end up with this:

Yummy thick yogurt on the left, whey on the right.  If you let this strain a long time (24 hours or so) you end up with yogurt cheese! You can use this for all kinds of things as a replacement for mayo or sour cream in nearly any recipe.

Whey is chock-full of protein and minerals, so it doesn’t need to go to waste. I use it instead of water for making bread, pancakes, etc., and gently stir it back into a bowl of yogurt if I want to thin it out a bit for me. Heck, you can even make whey biscuits! Whey keeps in the fridge for six months, so there’s no rush; it also freezes just fine. I freeze it by the 1/4 cup in a muffin pan, then pop the whey-sicles into a freezer bag after they’re set up for easy measuring in the future.

Pork Chops with Blue Cheese Gravy

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When I saw this recipe here I knew I had to give it a shot. And WOW is it good! And quick! I had supper on the table in 20 minutes, seriously; this is a fantastic weeknight meal.

You will need:

  • 2-4 pork chops (I use bone-in when possible for better flavor)
  • 2 Tbsp. butter
  • Garlic, salt, or whatever seasoning moves you; I actually used lemon pepper and loved it
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 4 oz. blue cheese/gorgonzola cheese

That’s it!

Now:

  1. Melt the butter in a pan (I used cast iron — shocker) and fry the pork chops till brown on both sides and at least 160 degrees inside
  2. Set the chops aside (I put them in the warming drawer in my oven)
  3. Pour in the cream and let it bubble up, and gently scrape up all the browned porky goodness from the pan so it all cooks together
  4. Sprinkle in the blue/gorgonzola cheese and let it melt
  5. Simmer this sauce, stirring nearly constantly, for at least five minutes or until it’s as thick as you like it — mine simmered more like 10 minutes and it was fabulous

And you’re done! I served it with lemon broccoli:

I made two pork chops, but a full recipe of gravy because I like it gravylicious.

The Yankee ate all of his and some of mine. We tried to get The Kiddo to eat a bite of broccoli, and told him they were trees. He then wanted to know if they were Christmas treees and therefore where the presents were. Parenting backfire.

But great supper! This is definitely staying in the rotation.

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

baking, dessert 11 Comments

I may have actually squealed in delight when I saw how cute these turned out. Just maybe.

I found the recipe over at Annie’s Eats and knew I had to give it a shot. The love my sister and I have for cherry limeades at Sonic is somewhat legendary. She actually lived in LA (that’s Los Angeles — not Lower Alabama) for a few years (far! Too far!) and when she would come back to visit we would always go to Sonic and drink our weight in cherry limeades. And Sonic happy hour during the summer? Half price cherry limeade? Nearly. Every. Day. Point being, this recipe was a no-brainer choice for my baby sister’s birthday this year.

I stuck pretty closely to Annie’s recipe:

Cupcakes:

  • 3 cups cake flour (I actually used cake flour, which I never do)
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 cup butter, at room temperature (I am a rebel and use salted all the time)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. limeade concentrate
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup milk (I used whole milk because it’s all we keep in the house)

To make cupcakes:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line or grease cupcake pans
  2. In a large bowl whisk together the cake flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached, cream the butter until fluffy and smooth
  4. Add the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until creamed
  5. Add in the limeade concentrate and mix to incorporate
  6. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions
  7. Add in the flour mixture gradually, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Mix ingredients just long enough that everything is incorporated — don’t want to overmix it

Fill your prepared cupcakes pans and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool cupcakes in the pans for 5-10 minutes, then completely on a wire rack

Now the syrup!

Lime syrup:

  • 3/4 cup limeade concentrate
  • 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

After the cupcakes are completely cooled, whisk together the limeade concentrate and confectioners sugar in a small bowl to make the lime syrup.  Poke several holes in the top of each cupcake with toothpicks and gently spoon the syrup over the cupcakes, a tiny bit at a time, allowing it to soak in. I didn’t end up using all the syrup, but feel free to do so! Annie tells me it’s up to your tastes.

Next…

Icing:

  • 3 3/4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 4 Tbsp maraschino cherry juice

To make the icing, combine the confectioners sugar, butter and maraschino cherry juice in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Mix on low speed until sugar is mixed in, then increase to medium speed and beat until smooth.  You can add more maraschino cherry juice as needed to thin out the icing enough to be workable, but I found that 4 Tbsp was just fine. Optional: add red food coloring if desired; I didn’t because the pink of the cherry juice alone was fabulous.

Garnish:

  • fresh lime slices
  • maraschino cherries

Ice your cooled cupcakes, and garnish with lime slices and maraschino cherries, if your little heart desires. I absolutely did desire — this put them over the top from great cupcakes to OMG THOSE ARE FABULOUS cupcakes. I love them!