Asian Chicken Wraps

I recently bought a head of napa cabbage and then I stopped to think about what I could make other than delicious noodle soup or stir fry. Then it hit me--wraps! I used the left over chicken filling for fried rice.

Chopped up veggies

ghetto-tastic way of steaming napa leaves

Stir fry!

All mixed up

Wrap complete! +20 XP

Asian Chicken Wraps
Ingredients

• Whole Napa leaves
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1/4 medium onion finely chopped
• 3 green onion sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken thigh with excess fat trimmed off
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp five spice powder
• 1/4 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp corn starch
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce

Procedure

1. Once you have minced, chopped, sliced, or diced the vegetables you can prepare the chicken. I used a large meat clever to cut the chicken into teeny-tiny pieces. Essentially, use the meat cleaver to chop up the chicken to an almost ground up consistency.
2. In a wok, stir fry the garlic and the onion with 1 tsp sesame oil. 
3. Then add the chicken, salt, pepper, five spice powder, sesame oil, corn starch, sugar, and soy sauce to a large bowl and mix well.
4. Boil a pot of water and steam the napa leaves in a steamer basket or balance the leaves over the pot of boiling water so that the lid holds the leaves in place over the pot and the napa is not touching the boiling water. Cook leaves until they become slightly translucent.
5. Once the onion has caramelized, add the chicken mixture to the wok. Cook in the wok until chicken is no longer pink. Then add the green onion and the red bell pepper to the wok. Mix well for about 2 minutes.
6. Lay the steamed napa leaves flat on a large plate and then spoon 1-2 tbsp of the chicken filling on to the end of the leaf (not the hard base/stem). Roll up the chicken filling in the leaf. Optionally, you can use a tooth pick to keep the wrap rolled up.
7. Eat the wrap as is or dip in sriracha or hoisin sauce. 

Variation on Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Bell Peppers

Recently I was stumbling on the internet and found this awesome recipe for philly cheesesteak stuffed bell peppers. It looked simple and delicious or simply delicious--however or whichever way you prefer. Anyhoo, I decided to try it myself and but changed it up a bit. Instead of provolone cheese I used pepper jack and instead of green bell peppers I got red and orange sweet bell peppers just because they were on sale. I felt really proud of myself because I cooked this dish at the same time I cooked some beef stroganoff. Both recipes called for garlic, onions, and mushrooms. So much food after 2 hours of cooking. I will be fed for the rest of the week. This experience inspired me to cook more dishes with similar ingredients at the same time to save myself the hassle of cooking them separately and doing the dishes. I will see how well that goes in the coming days.

Left: beef stroganoff. Right: philly cheesesteak stuffing.

Cutting out the ribs and the stem of the pepper was trickier than I thought it'd be.

Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Bell Peppers
Ingredients

• 8 oz baby bella mushroom, sliced
• 8 oz thin sliced roast beef sandwich meat
• 1/4 medium onion thinly sliced
• 2 bell peppers
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 8 slices pepper jack cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Procedure

1. Slice the mushrooms if you didn't buy sliced mushrooms. Slice the onions and mince the garlic. Cook the onions and the garlic with butter and oil in a large non-stick pan on medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the mushrooms, salt and pepper. Stir the pan frequently. Let the onions and mushrooms caramelize.
2. Cut the peppers lengthwise. Remove the stem, seeds, and ribs from the inside of the peppers.
3. Place peppers in a baking dish and line the inside of each pepper with pepper jack cheese.
4. While the onions and mushrooms are cooking, take your slices of roast beef sandwich meat and stack them on top of each other and cut into thin strips.
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  
6. Add the beef strips to the pan when the onions and mushrooms have caramelized. Mix well until beef is warm.
7. Stuff the peppers with the filling and then cover each pepper with a slice of cheese. 
8. Cook in oven for 15 minutes.

Crock pot Canned Salmon Chili

Happy Valentine's Day! This post has nothing to do with Valentine's Day and wasn't even inspired by Valentine's Day. I was cooking food for myself and thought I'd share. That is all.

This was an interesting recipe. I was wondering what I was going to do with this can of salmon that I bought. I usually just prepared it like canned tuna--add mayo and make a sandwich. But this time I wanted to be more creative. As with most of my experiments I googled to see what other people did with canned salmon. One of the first things that popped up was canned salmon chili. So I decided to give it a shot. What could go wrong? In the end this chili turned out pretty delicious but I feel like the proportions of the spices need to be fixed or I need to add less orange--maybe even take out the orange. It's a little weird. I like orange zest and juice in my chili, but I figured that the acid from the orange would neutralize the basic/alkalinity/fishiness of the salmon. I might just use lime juice instead. Also, if I weren't so lazy I would have added the cilantro later so that it'd stay a nicer shade of green instead of putting in the cilantro at the beginning. What can I say? It's easier just to put everything together in the crock pot and leave it to cook over night.

All the ingredients added to the crock pot.

8 hours later

Breakfast

Crock pot Canned Salmon Chili
Ingredients

• 1 can of salmon (drained with skin and most bones removed)
• 1 can (15.25 oz) corn kernels, drained
• 1 can (14.5oz) diced tomatoes
• 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
• 1 can (15.25) black beans, drained
• 1 orange, zested and juiced
• 1 bunch of cilantro, washed and coarsely chopped
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp cumin

Procedure

1. Prepare all the ingredients and all them all into the crock pot.
2. Mix all the ingredients inside the crock pot then set to low and cook for 8 hours.
3. Serve over rice, spaghetti, or potato. In other words, serve over your favorite form of starch. Enjoy!

Honey Garlic Chicken Wings

Inspired by Super Bowl food and these amazing chicken wings I ate at a friend's  Super Bowl gathering, I decided that I should try out some chicken wing recipes. Gator's Dockside, Wing Zone, and Wing Stop were my favorite chicken wing places when I was in college. I know I can't recreate scooter sauce or Parmesan garlic, but I can at least try to create something to appease my sweet, savory, and spicy craving.

Raw chicken layed out

Honey Garlic Sauce

Saucy

Yummy

Honey Garlic Chicken Wings
Ingredients

• 2 lb chicken wings
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 tbsp honey
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp ground ginger

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit .
2. In a large bowl mix the soy sauce, water, honey, garlic, garlic powder, and ginger. Mix until the honey is dissolved.
3. Dip each wing into the bowl of sauce. Make sure the wing is fully covered in sauce, then place wing in a 9 inch X 13 inch baking dish. Place wings so that they are close together but not touching.
4. Pour the remainder of the sauce evenly over the wings.
5. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.
6. Then uncover the baking dish and bake for another 10 minutes or until chicken wings are completely cooked.

Stir-fried chicken and eggplant with black bean sauce

For this particular recipe I estimated most of the ingredient quantities because I started cooking without measuring out the liquid ingredients. I have a habit of just throwing together dinner without measuring out the amounts. Typically it turns out pretty awesome. I wanted to cook something Asian-y and delicious. See for yourself.

Stir-fried chicken and eggplant with black bean sauce
Ingredients

• 2 Chinese eggplants cut into large chunks
• white meat chicken cut into about 1 inch cubes
• 1 clove garlic thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp ginger minced
• 2 green onion sliced
• 1/4 onion thinly sliced
• 1 tsp black bean sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp hoisin sauce
• 1/2 tbsp sesame oil

Procedure

1. Pour the sesame oil into a wok or large non-stick pan and turn the stove to medium heat. Cook the garlic, ginger and onion in the sesame oil. Cook until the onion becomes slightly transparent. 
2. Add the black bean sauce, soy sauce and hoisin sauce to the wok. Stir the contents of the wok occasionally.
3. Add the egg plant to the wok. Cook until eggplant turns from white to light brown and then add the chicken. Stir the contents of the wok frequently.
4. When the chicken looks almost fully cooked, add in the green onions. Cook until chicken is completely cooked and no longer pink. (About 10 minutes).
5. Serve with rice.

Baked Coconut and Oatmeal Breaded Chicken Nuggets

I had this craving for chicken nuggets but I didn't feel like buying bread crumbs or shelling out money for Chik-Fil-A. So I got coconut flakes instead and threw in some oatmeal and milk for this experimental breading/batter. I got the proportions wrong and the presentation wasn't that great, but that just means I know what I can adjust next time: more of the dry ingredients or less milk. As far as experiments go, this one was quite tasty. I ate it with some honey mustard, but it tasted pretty good without any dipping sauce.

The ingredients

Before baking

After baking. Looks are deceiving. These are actually pretty tasty.

Baked Coconut and Oatmeal Breaded Chicken Nuggets
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2/3 cup skim milk
• ~ 1 lb chicken cut into nugget sized pieces

Procedure

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
2. Mix the oatmeal, coconut flakes, flour and milk into a shallow dish.
3. Coat the pieces of chicken in the breading. Then place on cookie sheet.
4. Bake for 45 min. Serve with honey mustard or whatever dipping sauce you prefer.

Beef Stroganoff

Today I wanted to cook a recipe from scratch. I looked back at my recent postings and have found that I have been lazy lately. I've just been finding recipes on the internet to cook. So I picked something simple but delicious to cook--a Laureen Recipe. My goal this year is to simplify my recipes. I don't have enough time to cook for 2 hours a day. It also wouldn't hurt to spend less money on expensive ingredients or spices that I only use a little of.  Beef stroganoff is quick, simple, and delicious.  Notice how short the ingredient list is compared to some of the other recipes I have posted. Also, mushrooms are delicious. Most recipes call of ridiculous amounts of sour cream and beef broth, but I wanted to go healthier. On a side note, beef broth has way too much sodium in it and I don't think I'll ever buy it when I could just as easily use chicken broth.

Mushrooms and onions! Yeah!

I effing' love mushrooms!

Sexy and saucy.

Noms.

Beef Stroganoff
Ingredients

• 1/2 lb sirloin petite steak, cut into small pieces
• egg noodles
• 8 oz. baby bella/cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 3 tbsp sour cream
• 2 tsp corn starch
• 1/4 onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tbsp butter
• salt and pepper

Procedure

1. Cook onions with the butter in a non-stick pan on medium heat. Stir occasionally.
2. In a pot, boil water and cook the egg noodles according to the package instructions.
3. Add in mushrooms, salt and pepper to the pan. Cook down the mushrooms until the pan is full of the mushroom juices.
4. Push mushrooms aside until they take up half of the pan. Add the beef to the pan (see picture above). Stir occasionally. Cook until the meat is no longer pink. 
5. Mix in the sour cream. Stir until evenly mixed.
6. Stir in the corn starch to thicken the sauce. Cook until sauce has thickened.
7. Serve beef stroganoff over the egg noodles.