Pistachio Chicken with Coconut Rice

Now that I have got your attention with this delightful picture, FIRST I want to let everyone know...

tomorrow morning starts the first round of  this little contest

Thanks for putting up with sporadic posting this week, I spent most of my free time...which

wasn't much due to 2 snow days...working on my project for this round.

I finally finished it last night and had my photo shoot this morning with this Little Man

This photo is not of my final project, but I may or

may not have made that bowtie just for the photo shoot. Hehehe. Isn't it lovely?

So come back, have your friends come back, your friends of friends come back

tomorrow and the voting will begin on round 1.

Okay, back to Recipe Thursday.

Hubby brought this recipe to my attention awhile ago. At first I was skeptical because well it has peas, and I LOATHE peas. Yes I know that is a strong word, but believe me that is how strong my disregard is for the little suckers. Anywho, I ended up trusting him and thoroughly enjoying this meal.  The richness of the rice, the smell of this meal as it cooks. The YUMMY pistachios. Okay, I have gone on long enough.

This is one of those recipes that has a few extra steps. The good news is that it still comes together quickly. Oh and the GREAT news is that it is gloriously yummy. There are a couple of unique ingredients, so this is a meal you will have to prep for...that is unless you are far more culinary than I am.

Here is what ya need:

• shopping list
• 4 boneless, chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• salt and pepper
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion , minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garam marsala (this is the tricky ingredient to find...The Mart will not have it)
• 1 1/2 cups jasmine rice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 (13 1/2-ounce) can coconut milk 
• 4 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1/2 cup chopped pistachios, toasted
• 1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro leaves

Pound each chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap to a uniform 1/2-inch thickness. Place the flour in a shallow dish. Pat the chicken breasts dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Working with 1 chicken breast at a time, dredge in the flour, shaking off the excess.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat or a rectangular electric skillet, until just smoking. Carefully lay the chicken breasts in the skillet and cook until lightly browned on both sides, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the skillet and return to medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the onion, garam masala, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and garlic and cook until fragrant (so fragrantly delicious), about 30 seconds.

Stir in the chicken broth and coconut milk, scraping up any browned bits. Nestle the chicken into the rice and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook until the thickest part of the chicken registers 160 to 165 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, about 10 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a clean plate, brushing any rice that sticks to the chicken back into the skillet, and tent the chicken loosely with foil to keep warm. Cover and continue to cook the rice over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is tender, about 10 minutes.

By now your house smells absolutely D-vine.

Take the rice off the heat (or turn skillet off), sprinkle the peas over the rice, cover, and let warm through, about 2 minutes. Add the pistachios and cilantro and gently fold into the rice. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with the chicken.

Let the Competition Begin

I have a lot of dreams that I am a contestant on American Idol...I am not kidding...A LOT. They range from me being prepared and confident to me feeling like I am going to throw up, forgetting which song I am singing, and terrified of Simon Cowell.
When I wake up I always think, well that was weird. What made me dream all that? 
Then I remember, oh yeah, it is because anytime I sing to myself  I actually think, hey this would be a great song to sing on American Idol. I am not kidding. As I work out, I belt out songs. In the car, I belt out songs. When I clean, I belt out songs. AND in my head I am on stage singing on American Idol. 
Go ahead, you can openly mock me.
Reality always materializes, mostly when Hubby makes fun of my loud, breathless, ipod, work-out singing with a sarcastic, "you sound sweet". It is then that I realize I will never be an American Idol star. I am just out of my league with the crooners of the nation.
Fortunately, I dream about another thing ALOT, this is a little more attainable, reachable, doable. I dream about crafting.I dream of new projects. I dream about sewing. If it has to do with being crafty, you name it I dream it. So when I heard about the Next American Crafter competition hosted by Nap Time Crafters, I knew I needed to apply. I linked up my favorite recent project and waited to see if I was going to get my "ticket to Hollywood".
This morning, well I got my ticket. Woohoo! So now officially...



I start competing this week. Ahhhh!!! I am pretty sure I am going to have way more throw up moments then confident ones, but that is okay because there are no Simon Cowells' in this competition. The judges for this contest are the nicest and sweetest. They are-
Linda- Craftaholics Anonymous Mandy- Sugarbee CraftsJen- Tatertots and Jello
So this week the theme is Be Mine Valentine. 




So keep in touch. Send happy thoughts or chocolate my way. At the end of this week I will start my journey to be the Next American Crafter.
oh here comes the nervous I am going to throw up feeling...

Laundry Room Poster

I promise, promise, promise to have pictures of my laundry room up soon. Truth be told because my laundry room is not close to any natural light I have had a bugger of a time getting a good photo. AND I have three more things on my to-do list.

1. Fix the back of store bought bookshelf since Littlest Little Man put his knee through it promptly after hubby had put it on...you know what I am talking about, the paper/cardboard backing on cheap bookshelves.

2. Replace light fixture with cute hanging shade covered in my new favorite fabric.

3. Hang up the framed poster that I made.

Since I love ya all so much, and because I am WAY past due sharing my finished laundry room I am sharing the poster print I made with you all.

download

Click on the download link. This will take you to Google Docs, the only program I have yet to really understand how to share files. My original was set up with a pixel level that would allow me to print an 11x14.

I hope you enjoy. I hope it works for you. Let me know.

Boy am I glad this poster is pretty, because it just reminded me that I have load after load of laundry to do today. If it weren't so pretty I would just be depressed right now.

In a Nutshell: Recovery and Get 'er Done

This year winter has been rough sickness wise. I mean really it is like a nasty chain reaction around here. Wee One and I seem to be always the most affected and the longest lasting. Yuck. 

This week started with Wee One, Hubby, and me wrapping up the sicky train.

Most of you might know when Little Man is sick, this happens-

he is in our bed, yup that is where he sleeps

sorry for the lame picture, I was NOT about to wake him up with my flash

When Wee One gets sick, he is well how do I say this nicely...a little more demanding and umm spoiled. Which means that I end up getting no sleep, lots of stress, and one of these babies-

see the cold sore...yeah I am pretty sure I have been getting these every 3 weeks 

thanks Little Man

oh and I guess stress also makes me where no make-up and look like I have gone

through the ringer

 awe-some

With everyone getting over being sick, of course I had mountains of this to get done-

clothes, blankies, bedding, more clothes

 Then everyone was recovered and life seemed all dandy and back to normal. Unfortunately no one told our garage door opener. Friday hubby left for work and the garage door opener decided to make some pretty terrifying noise and then just die. Which meant that for now we had to manually lift up the door...I mean I know people used to do it all the time, but has anyone done it recently. That sucker is HEAVY.

After one time opening it, I immediately morphed into a 1950's housewife and demand that my big strong manly hubby open the door every time I needed it. Including when I came home from a Girls' Night Just Dance Party at 11:00 at night. Hehehe.

PS that game is AWESOME.

Okay back to the garage door.

We were really worried that this was not going to be something we could fix, therefore pricey and inconvenient. I had a friend a couple of years ago do research on fixing a garage door and she found over and over that most people strongly recommended that it should not be attempted on one's own. Something about springs snapping and ripping off limbs.

So I was a little worried when hubby said he thought it might be fixable by him since it didn't have to do with any of the springs. I kind of like hubby with his arms.

So hubby spent the day taking apart the opener, assessing the sitch, getting parts, and putting it all back together-

hubby saving us tons of money by being all Mr. Fix-it

Hubby aka Super Fix-it guy fixed our garage door. Woohoo. Garage door 0, Hubby 1. That's right we won. I am back to lazily pressing a button in my car to get the door to open. Thank Heavens.

I am not going to lie, it was a stressful week. I may or may not have eaten my feelings a lot this week. I may or may not have eaten my Valentine's Day decorations. 

Oldest Little Man finally noticed the depleting candy levels and said ,"Hey I thought we weren't supposed to eat these!" Head hung in shame I said, "No, no we weren't".

Here's is to a healthy and much more relaxing week. Well as relaxing as the Three Little Monsters Men will allow it to be.

PF Chang's Mongolian Beef

I am not sure why it took me so long to find this recipe. I mean really I LOVE, love, love PF Chang's Mongolian Beef. In fact, I never order anything else. I love it so much that I pretty much stab someone with a fork if they want to try and make our PF Chang's meals "family style". When ever we schedule a date/outing there (which is rare...probably why I am obsessed with this dish) I immediately start dreaming of my beloved beef. I know it is not right that a person should love food that much, but lets face it I do and I am not ashamed to admit it.

On one of our last dates there, I found myself thinking someone must have made a copycat of this recipe somewhere. Alas, I just forgot about trying to find it.

Fast forward to a week ago. I found the copy cat in a recipe book that I checked out from the library. I might have literally squealed and jumped for joy. I bookmarked it and set it aside to make a copy. I put the dish on my menu for the following week...I know you are surprised I didn't try to make it that night. 

The day I planned to make it I lost the recipe and the book was already back at the library. NOOOOO!!! Hubby suggest I look online. Guess what? Very similar recipes are pretty much everywhere on the internet. So I printed off one of them and I was off. (SO no one worry that I am infringing on copyright laws by sharing this recipe...well for the most part after all I don't know where these people got their recipe).

The recipe is pretty easy to follow. For the most part the ingredients are not too pricey. I did not alter the recipe at all. I wanted to see how the original recipe faired compared to the restaurant meal. As I was making it I was a little leery. It simply didn't look like my Chang's Beef. At one point I think I actually slumped over and pouted at Hubby that it was going to "suck"...yeah it was a glass half empty kind of day. He of course encouraged me to keep going, probably because we had no other option for dinner and there was pricey beef in the skillet.

I will tell you, once I poured on the sauce in the last steps I was almost sold. The smell! Well it was all that was glorious I tell you. If I closed my eyes and tuned out the screaming Little Men running around the house, I could almost imagine I was sitting there at PF Chang's. Hope started to bubble up.

I will contain myself and not write a novel about the fireworks that occurred when I actually ate this dish. Let's just say that I almost speared hubby and each one of the boys when the reached for a seconds of the beef. Yeah, it was that good.

SO, this recipe gets my stamp of approval. The only differences in this dish and the real thing were minor things that could only be fixed if I actually made it in a restaurant grade kitchen with professional equipment.

If you like this dish at PF Chang's give this recipe a go. Your stomach will thank you!

Is it okay that I am drooling and already wanting this meal again???

PF Chang's Mongolian Beef 

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon ginger, minced (I used a paste)

1 Tablespoon garlic, minced

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

vegetable oil, for frying (about 1 cup)

1 lb flank steak

1/4 cup cornstarch

3 large green onions, sliced in 2" segments

Heat 2 tsp of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan on med heat, oil shouldn't get too hot. Add ginger and garlic to the pan. Almost right away add the soy sauce and water. 

Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce. Raise the heat to medium high and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until thickens slightly. Remove from heat.

Slice the steak against the grain into 1/4" thick slices. You can get this cut if you tilt your knife 45 degrees as you slice.

Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch, applying a thin dusting to both sides. Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.

As the beef sits, heat up the oil in a wok or deep skillet. The oil should be hot, but not smoking.

Add the beef and saute for 2 minutes or until the beef edges are just beginning to darken. Stir meat around so it cooks evenly. Remove the meat and rest it on paper towels. Pour the oil out of the wok.

Put the pan back over med heat and put the meat back in, let it simmer for about a minute.

Add the sauce, cook for another minute while stirring. Then add the green onions. Cook for another minute.

Remove the meat/onions from the pan and put on a serving dish.

Serve with brown or white rice.