Behind the Scenes

I have five recipes posted now, and it seems like a good time to say a few things about my cooking/blogging style.

We eat a lot of chicken, not because I think it's most awesome thing ever, but because it's cheap, and we are (I'll admit it) poor. I do really like chicken, but the cheapness factor influences a lot. 

For the same reason I use margarine instead of butter. Butter generally works better in baking, so if you have it, use it.

After I make the recipes I plan on posting, I ask Daniel "Is this blog worthy?" He has never said no, but like I said last post, he is easy to please.

I don't believe in just posting a recipe. I want you to get a taste of my personality when you read my recipes, so I try to use my writing skills as well as my cooking ones.

We are hoping to move fairly soon, and the kitchen will be a major determining factor in the place I choose.

The kitchen is really important to me because right now I have a teeny tiny kitchen. (There is a picture at the end of the post).

My baby "helps" me cook. I stick her in her sling while I'm doing things, unless there is a knife or heat involved, in which case I stick her in the swing, bumbo, or bouncy chair in a place she can watch me.

I'm better at making up main dish recipes than desserts, but I wish it was the other way around. I'm working on that.

There are parenthesis around Chinese and Mexican on my labels because my food is not authentic and I don't want people to think I am claiming that it is.

I try to blog more than you think, but inevitably Juliet gets fussy at those exact times. I figure she just doesn't want food network to sweep me making me spend less time with her. Ha.

I have several recipes I am posting this week, so watch for them.

Yeah, that is my WHOLE kitchen.

Orange Chicken

Hey, let's be different this time and jump right into the recipe. Sound fun?

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 c corn starch
2 TBS flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 TBS olive oil
3 whole carrots

For the Sauce:
4 oranges
4 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp teriyaki sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp red pepper

Cut your chicken into about 1 inch cube-like pieces (I say cube-like because last I checked chicken isn't square shaped, so it's not going to be perfect). Mix the corn starch, flour, salt and pepper in a medium (size 4[heh, inside joke]) bowl. Toss the chicken into said bowl and mix around until the chicken is well coated. Your hands are really the best tool for this, sorry cooking can be yucky, that's why we invented soap.

My coated chicken.

After the chicken is coated, you are going to want to cook it. Heat a pan to medium heat and add the olive oil followed by the chicken. Brown the chicken nicely, stirring occasionally.

My browned chicken.

Since I only told you to stir occasionally, you can make the sauce while the chicken is cooking. It is really simple. Just juice your oranges (I do it over a sieve so no pulp gets in my sauce), then add the rest of the ingredients under the "for the sauce" section. A whisk is a great tool for this task. Also, take those 3 carrots, peel them and slice into 1/2 inch pieces. Once you have the sauce mixed, the carrots cut, and the chicken nice and browned, add the sauce and carrots to the chicken and slightly reduce the heat of the pan. Get out the pan's lid (uh yeah make sure you use a pan that has a lid), cover and simmer the mix for about 10-15 min. You will want to stir it a few times during this process. If everything goes well, it should turn out a bit like this:

My chicken has a little bit of a kick that hits you at the end. If you want a more kid or heat intolerant friendly dish, simply leave the red pepper out. I like my orange chicken better than most restaurant ones, mostly because it doesn't have super thick breading that has obviously been fried. Daniel said "I don't really like orange chicken, but this good." That is encouraging, but Daniel is easy to please. He eats most everything...other than cherries.