In the Kitchen - Chicken Stir Fry

I love to create in the kitchen... when I get hungry for something I search the internet for a recipe that fits what I have in the kitchen and also either has healthy ingredients or allows for substitution of ingredients.  Today I was hungry for Stir Fry. 

When I plan a meal or what to create next in the kitchen, I take stock in the refrigerator.  If I have something that will not last long in there, I plan to use it in an appropriate recipe.  Good food is not cheap and I really HATE throwing away something Mike has worked so hard to buy.  LOL

A few days ago, I had leftover cream cheese that Journey had requested but lost interest in.  Instead of letting it go bad in the refrigerator, I made her homemade mashed potatoes (and also used the potatoes in the Foccacia Bread recipe from an earlier post).  Instead of milk and butter when whipping the potatoes, I used some of the cream cheese and YUMMY!!  Made them good and creamy! 

So today I had some organic celery, mung bean sprouts that I sprouted myself a few days ago, a frozen bag of stir fry vegetables and a chicken breast in the freezer.  I decided Stir Fry would be good and full of veggies! 

The bowl is full of the sprouts..  I have the leaves and ends of the celery stalk under the sprouts.  I used all the celery!!

Here is the recipe I adapted to my own:

Chicken Stir-Fry

Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 35 Minutes Ready In: 1 Hour 20 Minutes Servings: 6

"This chicken stir-fry is a little spicy and a little sweet. Fresh ginger and garlic and a little kick, which is balanced with brown sugar. Though the recipe calls for bell peppers, water chestnuts, and broccoli, try it with any vegetable you like!"

Ingredients:

2 cups white rice 4 cups water 2/3 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger 1 tablespoon minced garlic 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 3 skinless, boneless chicken breast

halves, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 green bell pepper, cut into matchsticks 1 (8 ounce) can sliced water chestnuts, drained 1 head broccoli, broken into florets 1 cup sliced carrots 1 onion, cut into large chunks 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Directions:

1.	Bring rice and water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until rice is tender, and liquid has been absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes.
2.	Combine soy sauce, brown sugar, and corn starch in a small bowl; stir until smooth. Mix ginger, garlic, and red pepper into sauce; coat chicken with marinade and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
3.	Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir bell pepper, water chestnuts, broccoli, carrots, and onion until just tender, about 5 minutes. Remove vegetables from skillet and keep warm.
4.	Remove chicken from marinade, reserving liquid. Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir chicken until slightly pink on the inside, about 2 minutes per side; return vegetables and reserved marinade to skillet. Bring to a boil; cook and stir until chicken is longer pink in the middle and vegetables are tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Serve over rice.

Just a note here about more substitutions and the use of Soy Sauce.

Instead of white rice, get creative and add a little nutrition to your meal.  I used a combination of Quinoa, Couscous, and Old World Pilaf that I got in bulk from Whole Foods.  The combination of grains delivered a variety of different nutrients to our plate and turned out real good!

A small amount of each.   Pilaf cooks 50 minutes, Quinoa cooks 15 minutes and must be rinsed first and Couscous cooks 5 minutes so the timing and total water content of this dish had to be carefully figured and managed.

I used Turbinado sugar for the first time in this recipe. I found it at Whole Foods and while I am taking processed sugar out of our diets, this looked like a good alternative for some cases.  It looks like brown sugar and it is much less processed that granulated sugars in the supermarket. I probably could have used a little agave and molasses to flavor this but wanted to use my new sugar. 

The recipe calls for fresh Ginger but I did not have any and don't really want to make a supermarket run for something like that... so I substituted 1/2 the amount called for of the ground ginger in my spice cabinet.  Most recipes can substitute fresh for ground or dried spices ... the conversion is usually 1/3 to 1/2 ground or dried to 1 of the fresh.

For the oil, I used coconut oil for the vegetables and olive oil for the meat ...  I did not go buy Sesame oil just because the recipe called for it.

The Soy sauce...  well here is the deal on that...  I love soy sauce.  It is the only soy product that I can abide by for my family. I do not use it very often and have read a lot about the process of fermenting soy..  that is how soy sauce is made and the fermentation process changes the raw soy into something much different and not harmful to your body.  Fermentation of foods is healthy actually.. so I feel pretty safe with a little Soy Sauce... but every time I pull out a bottle of sauce or manufactured goods, it does give me pause to think and I am not sure I like it.  Getting healthy is a process and although I work really hard at it for my family and sharing it with you, I do not want you to think I am perfect at it.  NO WAY!  But I do try to understand my choices and make informed decisions.

So was it good?  Absolutely!  We loved it.  Here is the stir fry vegetables before I added the chicken.