What a wonderful Thursday! I had to pull the kids out of school to take them to a dentist appointment. I don't like to pull my kids out of school for any reason, but I couldn't get them in over Christmas break, and they were all booked up for January, so I took what was available. Now I easily could have taken them right back to school after the appointment, so that they could finish the day. Instead I took them to lunch and then to the store so they could spend some of their Christmas gift cards. They played hookie, and I knew what they were doing every second of it. Doesn't get much better than that. To be completely honest, they are the reason I have a job; I miss them when they're in school, and I need something to do to occupy my time, and make me a better mom. Well, that and so I don't check them out of school on a regular basis, so I can hang out with them.
So tonight's dinner was a quick crock pot recipe, only taking 2 hours. I knew I had some time to throw it together in the afternoon, and David would be in charge of the final touches. I got it cooking and then headed back to work for 1 client. David took care of the final touch, and then we had a meeting at my kids' school to go to. We had dinner after the meeting. Tonight's dish, Thai chicken and noodles was easy enough to prepare, but unless it's Mexican or Italian food, I have a very poor success rate when fixing ethnic food. Especially Asian cuisine. This one turned out OK. I won't say it was great, but is was good(ish). Everyone ate, so I will take that as a plus. The kids were wound up after the meeting at the school, so I had to remind them of their table manners, and had to keep telling them to eat, but that ate, so mom is happy. Just out of curiosity, am I the only one whose husband acts worse than the kids at the dinner table and ends up egging them on? I swear I have 3 kids sometimes.
I wrote yesterday's blog early - before we sat down for dinner. The dynamic at the table was off. I guess we can't be 100% all the time. SOMEONE didn't want to come to the table, and was grumpy about it, which made SOMEONE ELSE take it personal, because it was messing with her experiment, and blah blah blah. Anyway, we're over it, and I guess I have to realize that I can't expect 100% all the time. The word of the day yesterday was "pyrophoric" pretty cool, and we had some fun with that one. Especially because it's a term relating to chemistry. I am a science geek, but my true love is chemistry. I love chemistry!
Thai Chicken & Noodles
Makes: 4-6 servings
2 tsp olive oil
1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced into thin strips
1 bottle (about 10 ounces) sweet chili sauce
3 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (14 ounces) chicken broth
1 package (8 ounces) vermicelli noodles
1 C shredded cabbage and carrot mix
1 C bean sprouts (optional)
chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
chopped roasted peanuts (optional)
1. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken (in batches, if necessary) and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned on all sides. Transfer to crock pot.
2. Stir together chili sauce, peanut butter and garlic in a small bowl. Pour over chicken. Stir until chicken is well coated with sauce. Add chicken broth and stir well. Cover and cook on LOW for 2 hours.
3. Add noodles and cabbage mix. Cover and cook 30 more minutes or until noodles and cabbage are tender. Garnish with bean sprouts, chopped cilantro and peanuts, if desired.
When I was shopping for the ingredients for this, I looked on the spaghetti isle for the vermicelli, and couldn't find it. Before the days of the smart phone, I would just call my mom and ask her what it was, but now I can just look it up, and see that it is an Asian type of noodle. Just one isle over in my grocery store. Thank goodness for smart phones. I might have had to ask someone in person otherwise. Dodged a bullet there. Jokes, people. Just jokes. Seriously though, if you saw the store that I shop, you might think the same.
I learned another thing with this dish. I got out the bean sprouts for this meal. I bought a 12 ounce bag - the only size I could find, and only needed a cup. So in the spirit of cutting wast, I will be using some bean sprouts in my lunch tomorrow. ANYWAY, I didn't know you were supposed to boil the bean sprouts before you ate them. My whole life, I've always just eaten them raw.
The way I altered this dish to suit my family, was by leaving out the shredded cabbage & carrot mix. I couldn't find any, and my family doesn't like cabbage. The dish was fine without it. Also, I do not like cilantro (I recently found out that that is in your DNA), so I left out the cilantro. The hubs love it, so I chopped some up for him.
BONUS Recipe(ish)
For my lunch tomorrow, I'll make a paleo wrap that I found on Pinterest. For the filling, you mash up a ripe avocado, chop up 2 Lebanese cucumbers, add a cup of roughly chopped mixed green leaves, and 1/4 finely chopped almonds. I will add the bean sprouts to it. Which will probably make it less paleo. If you have any experience with the paleo way of eating, you're probably very familiar with the question, "is this paleo?" The recipe comes complete with an additional recipe for the wraps, using coconut flour, flax meal and tapioca starch. you can go to www.anjasfood4thought.com for the complete recipe, or you can just use a whole wheat tortilla if you're not all that concerned about paleo. If you're reading my blog, I'm guessing that paleo isn't all that important to you, or you're reading this as a guilty pleasure, or you're just judging me. Whatevs. I really like the light and nutty taste of these, and the texture as well. If you try them, I hope you like them too.
No comments:
Post a Comment