Epic dinner of awesomeness :)

Every now and again, I stumble upon a recipe (or mash a few together and tweak it a bit) that earns a coveted spot on the "OOOH if I ever have a restaurant, this will go on my menu!" list. This one may be in my top 5. 

Asian Lemon Chicken Tenders with Garlic Fried Rice. So unbelievably good. And it's actually quite easy! I was thinking I could make a super batch and freeze some for later, but I may just make a large batch of the sauce and freeze packets of it. 

The recipe includes making your own buttermilk tenders (which I did) but next time I'm just going to use frozen chicken fingers to make it even quicker. (Maybe once I break down and buy a fryer it won't be such a mess to fry things on my stovetop.) 

If you want to make your own tenders you'll need: 

2 lb chicken breast, sliced into tenders

1 c. Buttermilk (or 1 tbs plus enough milk to make a cup total)

1 1/2 cups flour

Salt/pepper/garlic powder/onion powder

Sauce:

1/2 c. honey

1/3 c. soy sauce 

1/4 c. pineapple juice

1/4 c. packed brown sugar

2 tbs apple cider vinegar

2 tbs olive oil (or whatever oil you have)

1 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Juice of a lemon

(Optional - 1 tsp cornstarch and 1 tsp water, mixed to slurry to thicken sauce)

HM tenders:

Season flour.

Coat chicken in flour/milk/flour. 

Fry until golden brown. 

Drain on paper towels (or napkins or coffee filters or brown paper bags or just over a cooling rack)

Sauce: 

Combine everything.

Bring to boil and simmer 10 min until thickened. If it doesn't thicken as much as you'd like (or if you waited too long to put it on to cook and needed it done 5 minutes ago, stir the cornstarch/water slurry into boiling sauce for a minute or so and then lower heat for a couple minutes.)

Toss chicken in sauce. 

For the Garlic Fried Rice:

2 cups cooked rice

Half head shredded cabbage

2 carrots, shredded

Small onion, diced/chopped

Couple stalks celery, chopped small

Ton of garlic (I put in like 2 RV of the jarred stuff)

Butter/oil

Red wine*

Soy sauce*

(*If you don't have these or don't want to add them, it'll still be good!) 

Sauté veggies in oil til tender. Add a decent splash of red wine and boil a minute or two. Splash in some soy sauce. Mix in rice. Simmer til heated thru. 

{Remember you can always hold your food in 170-200' oven to keep it warm til everything is done.}

So delicious! 

{I found (and tweaked) the recipes for the chicken and rice from damndelicious.net and pinchofyum.com respectively via Pinterest :) }

Trash Tip

I've been wanting to post this for a while but I never remember to take pictures to help explain it. I learned this trick casually observing a worker at the resort when we went on vacation a few years back and I've used it every time I've changed a trash bag since then. It's quite simple but pretty genius :)

Put bag in

Gather...

Twist...

And tuck...

See. Totally genius. Now your bag won't come loose :) 

I just realized this may be one of those things everyone else in the world knows and does naturally and I just learned it. LOL oh well. I'm admittedly not the quickest fox in the skulk. And yes, I had to look up what a group of foxes was called. Point made.

Keeping food warm :)

I've learned to accept that birthing babies cost more than my perfect physique (by that I mean my boobs lol). It definitely has impaired my ability to multi-task successfully like I did years ago. I've also adapted things I've learned in the past to work for me now. Case in point - cooking for the family while I'm trying to pull apart bickering children and switching laundry and answering the phone and on and on. Always ends up that only one part of the meal is warm when it's time to eat. Then I remembered the food warmers that commercial kitchens use to keep dishes warm until the entire meal is ready to go out. I started turning the oven on to its lowest setting (170) and using it as a warmer. Now my eggs stay warm while I'm making pancakes and those stay warm while I'm making hashbrowns. French fries stay warm with the burgers until I'm done frying them in batches. :) And most importantly -- mama always gets to eat HOT food even when she's the last to sit down.

Boneless Hot Wings :D

 Ok I've done it. 

After lots of trial and error, I've found the sweet spot -- the perfect boneless hot wings. Crispy on the outside, tender inside. 

I use boneless chicken thighs - chicken breast doesn't have the same depth of flavor that the thigh does when you're talking about wings. The taste is spot on. And they are perfectly crispy from the "breading" technique. Hubby raves. And you get more bang for your buck with thighs vs wings - which makes me rave. :D ok enough chatter, let's make some BL Hot Wings!

You'll need:

Boneless chicken thighs (trimmed of excess fat and cut into strips)

Cornstarch (don't sub with flour! This is what makes them crispy!)

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Salt/Pepper

Hot sauce

Butter/margarine

Oil (to fry)

Also, have handy:

A gallon ziploc bag

A colander

A plastic Walmart bag

Turn on your oil and get it going. 

Season your chicken with the garlic & onion powders and salt and pepper.

Put some cornstarch in the ziploc bag and add the chicken.

Zip (I leave air inside) and do the hippy hippy shake.. 😂 

Now, put your colander INSIDE the walmart bag and dump your chicken in it. 

(Sorry the photo isn't fabulous at portraying this!) hold the sides of the colander and handles of the bag together and gently shake to get the excess cornstarch off. Toss the bag - no mess baby! BOOYA!!! 

By now your oil should be ready. Fry the chicken in batches and drain on paper towels (brown paper bags or coffee filters work great as well when you don't have PT). 

Microwave equal parts hot sauce and butter/margarine (it goes a long way so I usually start with a few tbs of each). I do this in a bowl that has a lid - which makes the next part a snap. 

Add chicken, put lid on and.... 🎶Shake it to the left...Shake it to the right🎶 Ok I'll stop now. 

And we did it! 

Perfect boneless hot wings everytime! You can definitely just toss the chicken in whatever other wing sauces you want - if you feel adventurous, here's 50 different wing sauces to try in one link! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/articles/50-wing-recipes.html

The chili-ranch, maple-bacon, and cola-glazed ones sound super yummy!

You can make big batches and freeze too! (Spread chicken out on freezer-paper lined cookie sheet and freeze for a few hours --- keeps them from being a large lump of chicken pieces frozen together.) Just bake at 450' for 10-15 minutes on a greased foil-lined pan. 

There ya have it. And more importantly, I now have my recipe documented for future reference. I have a bad habit of not writing down my recipes because I'm SURE I'll remember them. LOL

Til next time, friends....

That time of year!

So I found this on my Timehop this morning -->

And may I digress for a second and just say that I totally LOVE Timehop - it will come in useful when I actually do my Project Life scrapbook that I got for my birthday like 4 years ago and hasn't even been opened yet... *hangs head in shame*

Back to the heating pack. I've found the best filler for them -- birdseed! It stays hot for a long time (nearly all night) and molds to your body so well. :) my kiddos have begged me to make one for each of them. Although if you want one in 2 minutes, you could just pour some birdseed in a pillowcase and knot it. Gets the job done (ask me how I know LOL).

Story of my life...

Yep - again, I started my blog up and said "I'm going to post on this everyday!" And two days later... *crickets chirping*

So. Let's try this again with no "x amount of posts per x amount of days" stipulation. I guess it's too much pressure for willowy me :) 

But I do have some stuff I want to toss into the good ol' blogosphere, so I suppose random postings will keep whoever decides to follow along (probably just my mom LOL - hi mom!) on their toes and coming back in hopes they'll find something new. 

Yeah, that's what it is. I'm inspiring spontaneous excitement among others. See how awesome I am at taking a pile of personal poo and turning it into a beautiful flower of giving to others. 

Or some crap like that.

Off to turn 10 random kitchen ingredients into something edible for the people....

Day 1

Day 1 of 0to70 Challenge!

I took my before photos this morning (scary!) and sent them to Jen for accountability purposes. Man, was that an eye-opener. I guess I just don't see myself the way others do and am really excited because I didn't feel as lumpy and blobby as my photos portrayed, so I'm only going to feel better as my body gets better.

I was up this morning at 8 and working out by 8:30 and then straight to the shower. I already found my first of undoubtedly numerous benefits and I love it! It's always freezing in our bathroom, so showering first thing is not something I'm partial to. But, that shower was heavenly once I was all sweaty and gross from working out. Dressed and ready to take on the day! .... and then I kinda slowed down and stagnated because Nathan is sleeping and I'm having to be in the kids' room to keep them quiet enough for him to continue doing so.

I can already tell that the benefits will increase exponentially and very quickly too! We'll be starting school in the next couple weeks, which means our schedules will kind of bulk up a bit with that, especially in the mornings.  Having energy right off the bat will make for better days overall...

Today's message to myself: Remember that ENERGY HIGH you felt after you were done working out! Natural endorphins will help your PMDD, depression, anxiety, sleeping, and overall mood too!

10 week challenge

So a high school friend who is a wicked beach body coach starts a Focus T25 challenge tomorrow and has graciously let me join :) (thanks Jen! You rock!)

I've tried T25 a couple times and each time I died on day 3. Shaun T.-2, me-0. This time I decided I needed some buddies to endure the torture, and sparing my husband the frustration of being my accountability partner is also a bonus! I'm doing T25 to actually complete something - and I picked the thing I knew would be a huge benefit to my life in multiple ways (boosts in energy, flexibility, strength, self-esteem, and hormonal/PMDD regulation) to force myself to foster some self-discipline and continue a commitment to completion despite how I feel in the process.

But if I know anything, it's that I'm a 200/0% kinda girl. And I'm a "tell me I can't have/do it and that's exactly what I'm going to desperately try to do/have" kinda girl too. So if I'm gonna step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to do this T25 for 10 weeks, I'm going to go all out and make it unreachable so I want it more. It's logical in my mind, alright? ;) 

I'm going to call it 0to70 because in 10 weeks (or 70 days!) time, I will complete the T25 challenge but also use the newfound energy to also try a few other things. I'm not drinking Shakeology because it has flavorings in it so I'm going to eat Weight Watchers (Points Plus) style. I'm not starving myself but I don't want to just binge on crap either, so WWPP will help me balance my eating. Also, I picked 10 things to work on in my house over the course of the 10 weeks! Here's a quick look at the things I'm going to work into the challenge:

ME:

1) Focus T25

2) eating healthier

3) blogging daily

HOUSE: 

1) clean 2 hrs per day

2) share out household responsibilities

3) do 1 project per week

Projects--

1) purge clothes

2) kids toys/books

3) our bedroom

4) craft stuff

5) linen/laundry closets

6) pantry

7) rearrange/paint kids room

8) paint bathroom/stain cabinet and dresser

9) hubby's desk redo

10) outside/porch/van

FINANCES:

1) spending freeze

2) OAMC or TAMC

3) save $400 for med supplies

I'm planning on a daily update even if it's just a quote/word of encouragement or a message to myself to come back to when I'm discouraged or tired.

Here goes nothing!!

Pizza pizza!

Finally perfected my pizza (hubby picked it even when he was offered steak!) and being me, I need to write it down before I forget it in a week lol. 

Refridgerated pizza crust from Walmart

1lb package square block whole milk mozzarella (great value); shred with large-holed grater

Tub of Frigo asiago/parm/Romano blend shredded cheese

Sauce/pepperoni/toppings

Garlic powder (or garlic bread sprinkle)

Parmesan cheese

Oven @ 425

Lightly butter bottom of stoneware bar pan. Press crust out and up sides of pan. Top with sauce and sprinkle garlic on. Bake 13-14 min or until light brown. Top with asiago/parm/romano mix and then mozzarella (both conservatively). Add pepperoni/toppings and bake an additional 4 minutes. Pull onto cooling rack, sprinkle with Parmesan shaker and cut.

Mommy quick tip

Put on Monkey's pants today and though they were great for length, the waist was a little loose on her teensy bum. Haven't had a chance to fix the elastic in her new pants my MIL bought her but had a random lightbulb moment and dug out a mitten clip. Bam. Easy as pie.