General Tso's Chicken

I love Chinese food, but for some reason I always thought that it was really hard to make so I had little desire to make it. I found a recipe for one of my favorite Chinese foods, General Tso's chicken. It is really easy to make and it is very delicious (as are all of the recipes on my blog). 享用

Ingredients:

1lb boneless skinless chicken thighs (cut into 1” chunks)
5 dried red chili peppers
3 green onions (sliced)
3 eggs (beaten)
½ cup cornstarch
oil (for frying)
Sauce-
1 ½ tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons rice wine
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch

Recipe: 

In a large mixing bowl combine cornstarch and beaten eggs. Mix well to create a batter. Add chicken bits and coat thoroughly. Make the sauce, in a small bowl combine rice vinegar, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar and cornstarch. Mix well and set aside. Heat deep fryer or wok to 375 degrees and deep fried chicken bits in batches. Drain on paper towels. Add 1-2 tablespoons of oil to your wok. Add dried chili peppers to your wok and stir fry for 30 seconds. Add chicken bits to the wok and stir fry for a couple minutes. Add sauce mixture to the wok and cook stirring until the sauce becomes thickened and bubbly. If you want it to be a little spicier you can add chile paste to the sauce. Carly doesn't like it too spicy... so I didn't

 Katie and Brandon sad "yum... that was good"

Sweet Pork Burritos

I love Cafe Rio and I love their sweet pork burritos especially. The recipe I use is s mix of a different recipes I have found online and received from friends. It is a very easy recipe to make and for measurements I usually just eyeball it.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 to 3lbs of Pork Roast

2 1/2 cans of Coke
1/2 cup of green salsa
1/4 cup of Franks hot sauce
1 cup brown sugar

First trim as much of the fat off of the pork roast as you can. You don't have to get all of the fat, just make sure there aren't any large pieces. Mix 1 and a half cans of coke with green salsa, Franks hot sauce and 3/4 cup of brown sugar. Place in crockpot with pork roast. Cook it on low for 8 hours. After 8 hours remove pork roast from the crock pot, discard the liquid. Shred pork. Put shredded pork back into the crockpot. Add can of coke and 1/4 cup of brown sugar on top of the shredded pork. Cook on low for another 3 hours. Serve with black beans, cilantro, avacado, sour cream, salsa, shredded cheese, and whatever else you like on your burritos.

James and Becky enjoyed the sweet pork burritos

Chicken Cordon Bleu

This week I decided to make a "fancy" meal. So I went with chicken cordon bleu. Unfortunately the chicken breasts that we bought from Sam's club are a little small so I couldn't use the ham steak that I like to use in this recipe. I was instead forced to use deli ham. This is a very simple yet delicious recipe that I got from Brandon and Katie Lowe.

Recipe:
-    4 chicken breasts
-    4 slices lean ham
-    4 slices swiss cheese
-    1 can cream of chicken soup
-    18 oz. package cream cheese
Pound the chicken thin with a meat tenderizer between two sheets of cellophane. Put the ham and cheese in the middle. Roll up and secure with a toothpick. Mix and pour cream cheese mixture over rolled chicken. Bake at 325 for 1 ½ hours. 5 mins before it’s done, take out of the oven and top with mixture of 3 tble spoons melted butter and a half cup smashed ritz crackers. Sprinkle on top and finish baking.

Like I said, I usually use Ham Steak with this recipe and since the breasts were so small we made 7 instead of four. Next time I make the regular sized chicken cordon bleu I'll post the
pictures on this post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Josh and Kelli enjoyed the Chicken immensely, as you can tell from Josh's face. 

Pink Pasta

Credit for the Recipe goes to my friend Jeff Poole. He served a mission in Italy and he said that this was one of the most popular recipes among the missionaries.

This recipe is delicious and very easy to make. It's what won over my wife, this is what I made for her on our first date.

Ingredients:
1lb italian sausage
1 medium size white onion
4 cloves of garlic (minced) 
1 can of 29 oz tomato puree 
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
1 bag of Mozzarella cheese

1 bag of rigatoni noodles
Salt/Pepper/Oregano (to taste)
Olive oil



To make the sauce you cut up the onion into cubes. In a large medium hot pan (lightly coated with olive oil) add onions and garlic. Cook until they start to get a little transparent. Then add pieces of the Italian sausage. Cook all together until the sausage is cooked all the way through. Add tomato puree and whipping cream with the other ingredients in the pan (I put onion, garlic and sausage mix into a crock pot on low then added the whipping cream and tomato puree. It all just depends on how much time you have. In my case I wanted the sauce to simmer for a few hours). Add salt, pepper and oregano to taste. While the sauce is cooking boil the rigatoni noodles until they are al dente.  Drain the noodles then place them in a large mixing bowl. Pour the cheese on top of the noodles in the bowl then add the sauce. Mix all together and enjoy!!