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
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.
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.
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!!
I love white enchiladas, they are very creamy and delicious. I decided to change things up a little this time. I wanted to try different flavored chicken inside the enchilada. So I made three variations along with the original.
The three variations were, Franks Hot Sauce, Wingers Hot sauce and Mandarin Chicken.
The ingredients and recipe are pretty simple.
3 chicken breasts shredded 1 pint of sour cream 2 cans of Cream of Chicken 1 small can of diced green chilies 2 Tsp of chili powder 1 pound of shredded jack cheese 12 flour tortillas
Mix chicken, green chilies and half of jack cheese together In separate bowl mix sour cream, cream of chicken and chili powder together.
Fill each tortilla with about 2 spoon fulls of chicken mixture (or as much as you want). Tightly roll the tortilla and place in a 12x9 inch glass pan. Keep them close together so you can fit all of the enchiladas in. Once you have all the enchiladas in (sometimes we use another glass pan if there isn't enough room for all the enchiladas in one pan). Then cover the enchiladas with the sauce. Place the remaining cheese on top of the enchiladas. Put in the oven for 40 minutes at 350 degrees
Side note: I had a half a pack of cream cheese sitting in the fridge so I added it into the sour cream mix, I honestly couldn't tell a difference.
The variations that I made were pretty simple also:
Franks Hot Sauce: After I shredded the chicken I put it in a Zip-lock bag and added enough of Franks Hot Sauce to cover all the chicken. I then put it in the refrigerator to let the hot sauce soak in for about 6 hours.
Wingers Hot Sauce: To make the wingers hot sauce you get frank hot sauce, for this recipe I used about 3/4 of a cup of franks hot sauce and about 1/4 cup of brown sugar. I warmed both of the together in a small pot. Then after all mixed together I let it cool for about 5 minutes then added sauce and chicken in a Zip-Lock bag in the refrigerator and let the chicken marinate for 6 hours.
Mandarin Chicken: I wish I could say that I made the mandarin sauce myself but I just bought it from the store (It was the Panda Express brand). I just added it to the chicken in a Zip-Lock bag and let marinate in the refrigerator for about 6 hours also.
I made the different chicken enchiladas in the same glass pan. I changed up the orginal recipe in the other pan just by adding Zesty Ranch Seasoning, about 2 tbls. It made the white sauce a lot more flavorful.
I really enjoyed all of the different chickens, I must say my favorite was the Wingers Sauce, chicken. My wife loved the mandarin chicken enchilada.
So to start off this Blog I decided to make something that I've never made before, Lasagna. I love Italian food, although it seems like most Italian food is the same. As long as you have a good sauce, you're more than likely going to have success with whatever you decide to make.
This is the sauce recipe that I used:
1 pound of sweet Italian sausage
1 pound of ground beef 1/2 cup of chopped onions
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 (28 ounce) can of crushed tomatoes
2 (8 ounce) cans of tomato sauce
2 (6 ounce) cans of tomato paste
1/2 Cup of Water
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon fennel seed
2 teaspoons fresh Basil leaves chopped
4 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley chopped
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
Brown sausage links in a fry pan over medium heat for about 15 minutes or until nice and brown. Using the same sauce pan add the onions and hamburger and cook until hamburger is browned. Mix all ingredients in a Crockpot and cook on low 8-10 hours or high 4-6 hours.
Ricotta Mixture:
18 oz of Ricotta Cheese
1 egg
2 table spoons fresh parsley
2 Tsp of salt
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Mix all ingredients together
Then I took out a 9 x 13 inch pan out and put a layer of sauce down, then noodles, then ricota mixture then mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. Then noodles etc, for three layers. I then covered the dish with plastic rap then tinfoil. I put it in the refrigerator over night. This helps to solidify the lasagna together helping it hold its shape while you are serving it.
Remove plastic rap and foil, cover it with only foil. Cook for 25 minutes at 375 degrees with the foil on then another 25 with the foil off. Keep an eye on it for the last 10 minutes, when cheese is golden, you are good to go. Take it out and let it cool off for at least 15 minutes.
Side note: I only cooked the noodles for about 5 minutes, its best to let them cook the rest of the way in the oven with all the delicious ingredients.
