Fantastic Chicken Lo Mein

I did it again! Another Asian dish served up at home, and taken down by the two of us like there was no tomorrow! When I see ingredients like sesame oil and rice wine vinegar something in my brain goes haywire and I immediately have to try it! You can find the original recipe at Prevention.com which includes the nutritional information. If you're not sure about all the health benefits from sesame oil, you can check out this information on Livestrong.com. It's full of anti-oxidants and antibacterial properties that you won't want to pass up! There are other uses as well, including skin benefits among other medicinal health benefits, if you want to do some looking around on their site! So without further ado...let's get started!

Ingredients
8 oz lo mein or thin spaghetti (you could even use a little more, I only had 6 oz and it didn't go very far)
2 TB sesame oil (you can also use olive oil)
1 lb. boneless, skinless, chicken breasts cut into thin strips
1 onion-chopped
1 lg. red bell pepper-chopped
2 lg. garlic cloves-minced
1/2 c chicken broth
3 TB rice wine vinegar
3 TB soy sauce
1 TB fresh grated ginger

Start out by cooking your noodles according to the package.

While you've got your pasta going, heat 1 TB of the oil in a large skillet over medium/high heat. Add the chicken strips and cook the chicken until no longer pink. Remove the chicken from the skillet and cover to keep warm!

Heat the remaining 1 TB of oil in the skillet, and add your red pepper, onion and garlic. Cook for about 8 minutes or until the ingredients are tender. Stir in the broth, ginger, vinegar and soy sauce and cook for another 2 minutes  Add the cooked chicken and the noodles, stir to incorporate everything together and heat through. 

Serve on a plate (or in a bowl) and enjoy!! 

We absolutely loved this and will be eating it again! Very quick and easy and would even taste great if you let the noodles marinade in the mixture over-night, add the chicken, heat up and enjoy!! Stay tuned for a fantastic snack idea! Until then...

~Happy Eating~

A little taste of the Orient

Is everyone as excited as I am about the return of Fall weather? I love the Fall...the smell, the world changing colors, the football games, the World Series baseball games, and definitely the cooking! Making dips and chili for Sooner football games, and warm, hearty foods to ease into the return of colder weather (hopefully)!! This recipe I made reminded me of Fall. It was warm, delicious, hearty, colorful, and would be divine with some lo mein noodles. We ate it as is, no rice and no noodles and it was absolutely wonderful! Next time, I will definitely "beef" it up with some noodles to make a exquisite dinner! So here is how you're going to cook up this delightful piece of the Orient...

For starters, I found this recipe on myRecipes (it can also be found on my Pinterest). It is full of colorful and tasty ingredients, so let's get started!

Here are the ingredients you're going to need:
2 TB ginger
1 TB minced garlic
3 TB low-sodium soy sauce
4 ts cornstarch, divided
1 ts sesame oil
1/2 ts red pepper flakes
1 pound of flank steak thinly sliced (I used tri-trip and cut it up into slices...it still worked and didn't break the bank)
Cooking spray
2 cups thinly sliced mushrooms- Shiitake
1 cup vertically sliced onion
1 cup red bell pepper strips
4 cups Bok Choy sliced/chopped
1 cup beef broth

First (about an hour or so before you're actually ready to cook) you are going to marinade your steak. I actually kept it in the fridge for 3 or 4 hours, just as long as it is in there for at least 20-30 minutes. You are going to combine the ginger, garlic, soy sauce, 2 ts of cornstarch, sesame oil, and crushed red pepper in a large Ziploc bag. Add your steak, seal the bag and pop it in the fridge.

When you are finally ready to get going, you are going to coat a large skillet with cooking spray and warm the pan over med-high heat. Add your mushroom, onion, and bell peppers. Cook about 3 minutes, then remove and transfer the vegetables to a bowl. Add the bok choy to the pan and saute until it is wilted (only takes a couple of minutes). Then, add the bok choy to the bowl of vegetables! 

Now you are going to re-coat your skillet with cooking spray and add half of you steak mixture. Cook about 3 minutes until the steak is browned (I actually had to turn up the heat just a tad). Remove the steak to the bowl, then repeat the process (coat pan--add steak--brown steak--place in bowl).

Now in small bowl, you are going whisk together the broth and remaining 2 tsp of cornstarch. Add this mixture to the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen the browned bits stuck to the skillet. Bring broth to boil and return your bowl of goodies to the skillet.

Toss this all together (gently) to coat everything with the "gravy". Take your skillet off the heat, make noodles or rice if you wish, and serve! It is delicious and packed with lots of goodies like greens, peppers, and mushrooms!!

This truly is a wonderful dish, and if you add noodles or rice, let me know how it turns out!! I get a lot of feedback from you all about what you like! Don't forget either that we are on Facebook!! Be sure to "like" the page so you can see when new recipes have been added!

Here is the link to the actual recipe again...RECIPE

~Happy Eating~

Here is my funny photo I found this week that I had to share with ya'll!! Keep your head up...Tomorrow is Friday!!

 Photo courtesy of http://www.mopo.ca