Sorry for waiting for such a long time to post. Summer has been a busy time for me and I honestly haven't really been cooking! :( I'm starting to get back into the swing of things and wanted to share a recipe that my roommates and I have enjoyed making a lot. It uses the Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing and since we made it the first time, we have always had the dressing on hand. If someone uses it all, they have to go to the store and get some more! It's as important to us as making sure we always have milk on hand. I found the recipe inthe food and family magazine I get from Kraft each quarter. Here it is:
The Cast of Characters: Angel hair pasta, broccoli, chicken, Kraft Asian Sesame Dressing, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, crushed red pepper, and peanuts.
To begin, cut your broccoli into small florets (thanks, Shauna, for being my hand model). You will want about 2 cups of broccoli florets.
Defrost the chicken and slice it into thin strips. You could get really fancy if you like and make them super thin. Use one pound of chicken (which is about three chicken breasts).
But never mind the broccoli and chicken, lets get down to the nitty gritty and start making the sauce!!! Sauce is one of my favorite words on this earth, probably because its one of my favorite things to eat! I typically use fresh ginger and garlic, but you are welcome to use ground ginger and garlic powder as well.
To start your sauce, dump in 2 Tablespoons of soy sauce. I only ever use the Silver Swan brand. It's what I grew to love while living in the Philippines. You can buy it here in Utah at the Mabuhay Mini-Mart in Taylorsville on 1750 W. 5000 S. Okay, thats the end of my commercial break, lets move on to the ginger.
If you've never used fresh ginger, here is how to use it: We want about a 1/4 of a teaspoon, but since I love ginger I'm going to add more. So I make a small slice that will equal the amount of ginger I want to use.
Next step will be to peel the ginger. Just use the knife and slice it right off, and breath deep while you do it, it just smells so GOOD!
Here's the fun part: You want to get as much flavor out of the ginger as possible, so go ahead and give it a nice good wack with the wide side of your knife - if that wasn't good enough for you, go ahead and give it another wack, or just pound it with your fist - whatever you need to do. This gets the juices goin and will add more flavor. It also makes it easier to mince it.
Ginger can be pretty stringy or hard to mince, so start by slicing it in one direction.
Then slice the other direction. Once you have done this, you can go ahead and mince some more, just for fun, or to be sure you don't have big chunks of ginger in your dish - if you aren't used to it, you might not be prepared for a big, hot chunk of ginger in your mouth. Add the minced ginger to the soy sauce.
Next is the garlic, which I love. Again, you only need about 1/4 of a teaspoon of garlic powder, but since I LOVE garlic I am going to use fresh garlic cloves and one clove isn't enough for me, so I use two. Did I mention that I love garlic? I do! If you don't have a garlic press, prepare it the same way as the ginger - remove the peel, wack it, then mince. A garlic press does all of that for you in one moment - it's so great and your hands don't smell like garlic for the next two days.
Next you will want to add 1/4 of a teaspoon of crushed red pepper. Again, this stuff is great and since i've added more of the other ingredients, I figured I should add more than what was called for of the red pepper.
Once you've dumped it all in, give it a good stir and set it aside. You will be adding this in later along with the asian toasted sesame dressing.
You will want to start cooking the chicken, so turn the stove onto a medium-high heat and add your oil (I always use olive oil).
Once the pan is heated add the chicken and cook for about 6-8 minutes stirring every so often. I'm using my Wok but you can feel free to use just a regular pan.
Once the chicken is finished cooking add 1/2 a cup of the Kraft asian toasted sesame dressing.
And after that add your sauce (if you would like to throw in some sesame oil as well, that is a great addition, I added about a teaspoon to this). Sorry for the not so appetizing picture.
Give it a good stir and cook for only about a minute. Now you are done with your asian chicken. On to the noodles:
I should have mentioned it earlier, but at some point in cooking the chicken, you would want to begin cooking your noodles. I use 8 ounces of angel hair pasta. Half way through cooking the noodles, add the broccoli florets to cook them as well.
Its a great way to kill two birds with one stone by boiling the broccoli with the noodles and you only have to drain once.
Once the noodles and broccoli are finished draining put them into your serving bowl and add the asian chicken.
Stir everything together and sprinkle on a 1/2 cup of peanuts or slized almonds to the top.
And enjoy! I couldn't get a good picture to turn out of the finished dish since the lighting in the kitchen is just too dark, so we end up with this silly picture proving how much of an adventure it can be to cook with Shauna helping you out and modeling. Thanks ma'am!
Complete Recipe:
Asian Chicken Noodles
8 oz. angel hair pasta, uncooked
2 cups broccoli florets
1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
1/2 cup Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1/4 tsp. each groun ginger, garlic powder, crushed red pepper
1/3 cup chopped dry roasted peanuts or almonds
Cook pasta as directed on package, adding broccoli to the boiling water for the last 3 min. of the pasta cooking time. Meanwhile, spray large nonstick skillet with cooking spray; heat on medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook 6 to 8 min. or until cooked through, stirring occasionally. Stir in dressing, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and crushed red pepper; cook 1 min., stirring occasionally. Drain pasta mixture; place in large bowl. Add chicken misture; mix lightly. Spoon evenly into 4 serving bowls; sprinkle with the peanuts. Substitute; Use whatever vegetables you have on hand, such as snow peas, sliced bell peppers, sliced carrots or chopped red onions, instead of the broccoli.
You may have noticed that this blog was a little more than boring this summer since there were never any posts. It's because me and my roommate were so busy whipping up some amazing creations in the kitchen, there was just no time to post them all. Okay, so maybe that was a lie, but we did make a few things and this was one of them. My strawberries finally had an amazing year and produced a lot of fruit (sometimes more than I could pick). This recipe came in handy. Hope you enjoy it!
Cast of Characters: Strawberries, Sweetened Condensed Milk, Lemon Juice, Cool Whip, Oreos and Butter!
Line the inside of an 8x4-inch loaf pan with foil.
Mash two cups of strawberries in a large bowl. Yum!
Pour in one can of sweetened condensed milk and 1/4 cup of lemon juice.
Stir! Mix it all together.
Add two cups of cool whip............
and stir again.
Take 8 oreo cookies and finely chop them.
Combine the oreos with 1 tablespoon of melted butter.
Take your foil lined pan and pour in the strawberry mixture.
Spoon the oreos over the top of the pan.
Press the cookie mixture into the strawberry mixture to form a nice crust.
If the spoon doesn't cut it for ya, just use your hands, who cares! (Thanks, Shauna, for being my hand model!)
Fold the ends of the foil over the dessert and cover entirely with another piece of foil. Place it in the freezer. It will take about 6 hours to freeze (hopefully you weren't needing it anytime soon).
Once frozen, unwrap the top of the dessert. Once the top is unwrapped, place upside-down on a platter and remove the rest of the foil.
At this point you can frost the entire cake with cool whip with strawberries on top. There were only two of us to eat this so we cut a few pieces off.......
Yum!
Your final product!!!! Its great, nice and cool, yummy and full of strawberry goodness. Enjoy!
