Kung Pao Chicken Tacos

I absolutely LOVE Chinese food. If given a choice of cuisine, it's usually one of my top picks. Maybe from growing up in Seattle? I don't know. I haven't played around with cooking too much of it on my own (even though a few years ago I did invest in a pretty heavy duty Chinese cookbook). I was excited when I saw this recipe in October's Cooking Light because Kung Pao Chicken is one of our favorite Chinese take-out dishes. Since it has a little kick to it I decided to make it for a date night dinner for the husband and me since my kiddos don't like spicy.

Kung Pao Chicken Tacos
Source: Cooking Light magazine, October 2012

6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce, divided
1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch, divided
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sambal oelek (ground fresh chile paste)
1 large garlic clove, minced
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped dry-roasted peanuts
3/4 cup diagonally sliced celery (about 2 stalks)
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1/3 cup sliced green onions
1/2 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced
4 lime wedges

1. Place chicken in a large zip-top plastic bag. Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce to bag; seal. Marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes. Remove chicken from bag; discard marinade. Place 1/4 cup cornstarch in a shallow dish. Sprinkle the chicken evenly with salt. Add chicken to cornstarch in dish, and toss chicken to thoroughly coat. Shake off excess cornstarch.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon canola oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add half of coated chicken; sauté for 6 minutes or until done, turning to brown. Remove chicken from pan using a slotted spoon; drain on paper towels. Repeat the procedure with remaining 1 tablespoon canola oil and coated chicken.

3. Combine remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch, remaining 2 tablespoons soy sauce, honey, and next 3 ingredients (through sambal oelek) in a microwave-safe bowl, stirring with a whisk until smooth. Microwave at HIGH for 1 1/2 minutes or until slightly thick, stirring twice. Stir in garlic. Combine soy sauce mixture, chicken, peanuts, and celery; toss to coat chicken.

4. Toast tortillas under broiler or on a griddle until lightly blistered, turning frequently. Place 2 tortillas on each of 4 plates; divide chicken mixture evenly among tortillas. Top each taco with green onions and bell pepper strips; serve with lime wedges.

*****

I used chicken breasts instead of thighs because it's what I had on hand. That was my only change, though. We LOVED the taste of the chicken, but we did not like it in the tortillas. I had even bought fresh corn tortillas from a nearby Hispanic market, and we just didn't like it in the tortillas. The actual Kung Pao Chicken was FANTASTIC. There were no leftovers--we devoured every single bite, it was that good. This is definitely something I'll be making again, but I'll skip the tortillas in the future!

Beef Bulgogi

Did I mention that we just moved Boy #2 from his crib into a big boy bed? I'm freakin' exhausted. He apparently thinks it means he can get up as many times as he wants at night and come wake me up and get up at the ass crack of dawn in the morning. *yawn* I'm a tired mama. Last night I got 6.5 hours of sleep, one of which was spent laying on the floor of his bedroom. Ugh. I know Boy #1 took awhile to adjust to not being confined when he slept, but I don't remember how long it took. I don't really feel capable of getting anything accomplished around my house today (I changed into jammies after my post-gym shower), so I'm going to update my blog.

By the way, I created a Facebook Page for my little blog here. There's a link over on the right sidebar where you can like it from here or come visit me on there. I don't really know what I'm going to do with it, I'd just been thinking about doing it for awhile and today seemed like a good day.

I've been in a bit of a funk lately, which I'm sure directly correlates to my lack of sleep, and meal planning just wasn't exciting for this week. I pulled a cookbook off my shelf that my mother-in-law had gotten me for Christmas a couple years ago and flipped through it hoping for ideas. She was a teacher at a Christian high school in San Antonio (she just retired!), and it was a fundraising project from the senior class I think. I love cookbooks where people submit their own recipes because who's going to submit something that sucks? This recipe called for flank steak, but London broil was on sale, so I thought it would be good. Bulgogi, according to the recipe intro, is a Korean treatment for steak that has very wide appeal to western palates and is remarkably easy to make. Also sometimes written as Pulgogi, Bulgogi literally means "fire meat" although this refers more to the cooking method than the spiciness of the dish. So there you go. I have no idea how to pronounce it. Bul-go-gee? Bul-gah-gee? Something else entirely?

Beef Bulgogi

2 lb flank steak or sirloin
1/2 c. packed dark brown sugar
3/4 c. soy sauce (preferably low salt)
1 Tbsp sesame oil
Dash of red pepper flakes or ground cayenne
5 or 6 green onions, sliced
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed

For cooking:
3 Tbsp sesame oil
3 Tbsp peanut or vegetable oil

For thickening marinade/sauce:
1 Tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 Tbsp water

Trim any visible fat and sinuous tissue from the uncooked steak and wrap the meat in plastic wrap or a Ziploc bag and place in the freezer for half an hour to partially freeze meat. Remove meat from the freezer and slice as thinly as possible across the grain. Lay out meat slices in a single layer in a low, glass or ceramic casserole dish. As you cover the bottom once, crumble some of the brown sugar over the uncooked meat and continue layering meat and brown sugar until all the steak is sliced and the sugar used.

Marinade: In a bowl, mix soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sesame oil, red pepper, onions, rice vinegar, and garlic. Pour marinade over sugared meat and cover to marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Can be marinated all day or even overnight if using low sat soy sauce.

Heat a large skillet on medium high heat and mix the remaining sesame oil with the peanut or vegetable oil. Working in small batches to preserve the heat of the pan, use a little of the mixed oils and quickly fry the steak until just cooked medium rare. Remove cooked slices to a warm serving platter and repeat the process until the whole batch of meat is cooked. use more oil if necessary. After meat is cooked, reduce heat to medium and add leftover marinade to skillet. Bring to gentle simmer and stir in cornstarch/water mixture. Stir while thickening and pour over cooked meat.

*****

The marinade smelled fantastic. I love the smell of sesame oil. As I was cooking the meat Boy #1 kept saying, "Mommy dinner smells so yummy!" It ended up being super tasty. I think our meat ended up being more on the medium or medium well side because I wasn't really sure how long to let it cook before flipping it, but it was still good. The sauce on top was really good, too. Since it had raw meat marinating in it, I heated it to boiling just to be safe. We all really liked this. Boy #1 complained at one point that he was getting full and asked if he could just eat half of what was left on his plate. I said sure, but then a couple minutes later he and I realized he'd eaten all of it! We just had the meat with some frozen Asian blend vegetables, but I think the meat would be really good in lettuce wrap form, too. I'll definitely make this again!

Sadly, none of the pictures I took of the cooked meat turned out. :(

Marinated Grilled Chicken Legs

I have to say, I'm on a roll with the new Cooking Light recipes I've been trying. So much so that the husband said we should have Cooking Light Month at our house. I gotta say, I'm not opposed to the idea. Three of the six recipes I still need to post about are CL recipes and were all tasty. I don't remember how I came across this one. I think it was an article on their website about 101 ways to cook chicken or something. Boy #1 LOVES chicken legs, and they were on sale last week, so I thought this would be good. It's pretty funny because he calls them "chicken bones." Let me tell you, it took awhile to figure out what he meant when he was asking for chicken bones.

Marinated Grilled Chicken Legs
Source: Cooking Light website

1 cup fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
4 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 1/2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons basil oil
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
8 chicken drumsticks (about 2 1/4 pounds), skinned
Cooking spray
Green onion strips (optional)

Combine the first 11 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag. Add chicken to bag; seal. Marinate in refrigerator 2 hours, turning bag occasionally.

Prepare grill.

Remove chicken from bag, reserving marinade. Place reserved marinade in a small saucepan; cook over medium heat 3 minutes. Place chicken on grill coated with cooking spray; grill 30 minutes or until chicken is done, turning and basting occasionally with reserved marinade. Garnish with green onion strips, if desired.

Amount per serving (2 drumsticks)
Calories: 215
Calories from fat: 31%
Fat: 7.5g
Saturated fat: 1.8g
Monounsaturated fat: 2.8g
Polyunsaturated fat: 1.8g
Protein: 30g
Carbohydrate: 4.4g
Fiber: 0.1g
Cholesterol: 97mg
Iron: 1.5mg
Sodium: 339mg
Calcium: 18mg

*****

I figure since the nutritional info was there I might as well include in case anyone else is counting calories like we are.

This chicken was REALLY good. The only thing I left out was the basil oil because I don't have any and didn't really want to buy any for the small amount that is used. Although in hindsight I probably could have just bought some fresh basil and made my own. Oh well. I used sriracha for the hot sauce and was worried I'd added too much, but it wasn't spicy at all. Dodged a bullet there because Boy #1 does not like spicy and would have been very disappointed if he couldn't eat the chicken bones.

We all really liked this. I wished I'd thrown a few more legs into the marinade so I could have had another and/or some leftovers. This will definitely be a go to recipe for chicken bones in the future!

Hoisin & Ginger Pork Wraps with Cruncy Peanut Slaw

Alright, I'm back on track and ready get back into the swing of my blog! The boy started swim lessons yesterday morning, and yesterday and today have both been crazy busy. The next two days aren't looking a whole lot better either. I really should be cleaning a bathroom or doing laundry or something equally as exciting, but I miss my blog. Plus neither my dirty bathroom nor the huge pile of towels that need to be washed are going anywhere. They can wait a few more minutes while I update here.

One of my most favorite blogs is Meal Planning 101. Everything I've tried from her blog is awesomely amazing. I saw this when she posted it and thought it looked fantastic. I heart just about anything with hoisin sauce. It was funny, shortly after I had seen this recipe Jen B. sent me an email with a link to this saying something along the lines of "This looks fantastic!" I had already slated it for dinner one night this week. The recipe calls for meat from a cooked pork shoulder, but I'm just going to cook some pork chops and shred the meat and call it good. Costco had a smokin' deal on pork chops when I was there last week, so I have quite a stockpile of them now. I can't wait for dinner tonight!

Hoisin & Ginger Pork Wraps with Cruncy Peanut Slaw

Hoisin-Ginger Pork:
2 cups shredded pork
1 clove garlic, minced
1-2 inches of ginger, grated
1/4 cup hoisin sauce (or more as needed to cover the pork)

In a medium saucepan, heat 2 tsp oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and stir until fragrant about 30-60 seconds. Then add the pork and hoisin sauce. Turn heat to medium-low and let simmer for about 5 minutes until heated through and all the flavors have combined.

Crunchy Peanut Slaw:
1/2 medium head green cabbage, outer leaves removed (or 1 bag of angel hair coleslaw)
3/4 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts
4 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup light oil, like canola
1 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tbsp sugar (or more, to taste)
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce (or more, to taste)

Slice the cabbage as fine as you possibly can, so you have little threads of cabbage (I just bought a bag of angel hair coleslaw where this was already done for me). Toss in the peanuts, green onions, and cilantro. Place the oil, rice vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and soy sauce in a resealable jar and shake. Pour over cabbage mixture and toss until coated.

Serve the hoisin-ginger pork along with the crunchy peanut slaw with whole wheat tortilla wraps. Place both inside of a tortilla and roll up.

*****

Mmmmmm...I can't wait! I need to get my pork defrosting so we eat on time since I still have to cook it. I don't think I have peanuts, but I do have some cashews left from when I made Stir Fried Cashew Pork recently. Plus I like cashews better than peanuts anyway. I also bought a bag of coleslaw mix because it was on sale for $1, and I figured that was just easier than having to slice my own cabbage. I still have no idea what we're going to have as a side dish with this. Maybe just some kind of vegetable and a salad and skip having a starch.

*****

These. Were. Awesome. Oh man...the slaw was amazing. The boy helped me mix it up, and he and I kept taking bites after it was all mixed up. I didn't have cilantro (well, I did but half of it had turned to mush), but it was fine without it, although I will definitely add it next time. The pork was super tasty, and the combination of the pork with the slaw was fantastic!! We all really liked this, and it's something I will definitely make again!