Bean Sprout Chicken

Sprouting Dinner

Bored, broke, and dead tired. This has been me for the past few days. No money, no ambition.and few ingredients. Whats a girl to do.

Picture it, my refrigerator, a barren waste land, strewn with half empty bottles of random condiments. A vast emptiness in an enclosed space containing one lonely bulb of garlic, a bag of bean sprouts just a hair short of reaching their shelf life, leftover dried out rice and some boneless chicken breast. The only sign of life is the scallions growing on the counter top. What on earth can you do with that?

You can make deliciousness that's what. This is a true fusion style dish. I tend to have all sorts of spices in my cabinet. Japanese 7 spice powder and kefir lime powder among them. If you are like me and enjoy the more exotic spices but live no where near a spice shop or Asian market, give Season with Spice a try. I buy all my more exotic spices here. They have a great selection, the spices are fresh, ground well and reasonably priced.

Bean Sprout Chicken

1 lb chicken sliced into thin small strips

2 cups bean sprouts

½ cup scallions, just the greens

1 tbs sesame seeds

1 tbs crushed garlic

1 tsp Japanese 7 spice powder

½ tsp kefir lime power (optional)

1 tbs Shoyu

1 tbs Mirin

½ tbs lemon grass (I have the sliced kind in a jar. You can get it in the international foods isle of the grocery store.)

1 tsp corn starch

2 tbs olive oil

Heat wok or sauté pan over medium heat, add oil.  Let the oil heat, and then add the chicken and 7 spice powder.  Once the chicken is ½ cooked add in garlic and lemon grass and ½ Shoyu. Cook the chicken through and add in the bean sprouts. Cook and stir for 3 minutes. Add in remaining scallion tops, Shoyu, Mirin and kefir powder. Cook, stirring constantly for another 2 minutes. Add corn starch to liquid on bottom of the pan to thicken the sauce. Remove from heat, toss with sesame seeds and serve with rice.

Broiled Mushrooms

Fun-gus

I have never been a fan of mushrooms, as previously stated, but I have been slowly rectifying that issue. Lately I found a simple way to make mushrooms that I absolutely adore. For once its not in pickle form.

If you are low on time, energy, ambition or vegetables...this is the dish for you.

Marinated Mushrooms

Ingredients:

1 bottle Italian dressing (the cheapest you can find)
1 large package  Portobello or button mushrooms sliced thickly

Items needed:

Container
Tin foil
Pan spray
Cookie sheet

How to:

Wash the mushrooms and slice them. Put in a container and dump Italian dressing on them. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes to over night. I often make these the night before or even two days before I am going to cook them. They do get a bit acidic in flavor the longer you leave them marinating so keep that in mind.

Place oven on 500 degree broil.

Put tin foil over your cookie sheet and spray it with pan spray. Place, do not dump, the mushrooms on the pan. SAVE THE REMAINING DRESSING. I usually chop up a new batch of mushrooms for a day or two later and use the same dressing. Its still good, it just had a mushroom taking a bath for a bit.





Place on the pan farthest from the broiler heat for about 10-15 minutes. Then flip each mushroom over and place closer to heat for another 5 minutes or until edges start to darken. May take a few more minutes depending on your oven.


I love these as an easy side dish or as an addition to a lettuce wrap, burger, salad....they can do no wrong. Since first making these I have eaten them at least twice a week.

Wrap Pizza

Fast Food

 How many of you have had this day. You get up late, forget to take out something for dinner, run through the day at full speed breaking yourself on a wall of exhaustion. You get home only to realize that there is NOTHING to eat, no left overs, no snacks, not even a can of tuna. All you have is frozen and takes to much of your already depleted energy to make. Whats the solution? Pizza Delivery.... Yes, you are saved. You go to your wallet and realize it is growing dust bunnies. /sigh, too poor for take out. This is my life story.

When the above paragraph describes my life, I make what I call fast "thin" crust pizza. Most people have the ingredients on a shelf. Pizza sauce, tortilla wrap, cheese and random veggies.

My freezer always has shredded cheese of some sort. I normally have random fresh or frozen veggies and I always keep wraps on a shelf...the things last forever.

What and How-
Heat the oven to 350
Spread about 3-4 tbs of pasta sauce on your wrap
Sprinkle with cheese
garlic powder if you have it or what ever other spices and topping you have laying around
and random veggies.

Bake for about 10 min until cheese bubbles.
Then place under broiler for about 2 minutes. (WATCH CLOSELY or you will burn.)
just to brown the cheese a bit.

Slice and eat. Its a customizable, fast, cheap and easy dinner.

 

Ramen Girl...

DIY Ramen Seasoning

The story of  one girls search for the perfect bowl of Ramen,

No I am not THAT Ramen Girl, obviously....I am the home sick, to tired to cook, need to feed children quickly kind of Ramen girl.

Who doesn’t remember coming home from school, grabbing that individual red and white packet, popping a bowl of water in the “nuker” and fighting with the little foil packet of overly salted flavor goodness for a quick meal.  It was the food for when mom and dad where not home to make dinner, the cheap eats that got us through college, and the warm winter meal when we were sick or in my case, just to lazy to cook dinner. Ramen Noodles.

I love ramen in just about every flavor. And there were lots of flavors. There was chicken, shrimp, beef, kimchi and hot and spicy varieties. In my youth I ate it right out of the package, uncooked sprinkling the packet O'flavor on the crunchy noodles. In college it was the food of necessity. Now, I add sliced steak, shredded veggies and some hard boiled or even shoyu pickled eggs. If you have had bad experiences with certain brands and unidentifiable "ingredients" but still like ramen type soups this is the recipe for you. Or you can shoot over and give my fish based more "grown up" recipe a try-(check it out). 

Unfortunately, anyone who has stumble onto this blog and actually read it will know that I have gone from carefree food girl, to (semi) gluten free girl because of a combination of old age and digestive problems.

This meant Ramen's traditional yellow curly noodle and gluten laden flavor packets was out. What’s a girl to do. I could cry in my empty bowl, pay the ridiculous price for gluten free (and tasteless) ramen type noodles, OR make my own.We all know option number 3 is my style. I googled a ton of DIY ramen seasoning recipes. Tried many of them, and then decided to mix and match to find the perfect taste. Here is what I came up with.Your tastes may differ, so I recommend playing with the amounts until you get your perfect Ramen!

Basic “Chicken” Ramen Seasoning

3 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger (i like heavy ginger, this may need adjusting for others)
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons chicken bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

Mix it in a bowl and place in a container for storage 2 tbs to 3 cups of water (give or take on each of the spices depending on your taste)

Now as mentioned above, you can make various types of ramenesque seasoning by adjusting the ingredient list ever so slightly.

DIY “Beef” Ramen Seasoning

3 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons BEEF bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

DIY “Spicy” Ramen Seasoning

5 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons chicken or beef bullion (you get the idea on changing the base “flavor” by now. Chicken, Beef, fish bullion, even vegetable works fine)
1 tablespoon Parsley

DIY “Kimchi” Ramen Seasoning

2 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons ground dried Kimchi (see below)

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons chicken bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

This one takes a bit more effort to make. If you are a Kimchi fan, as I am, and you make your own, set a jar in the back of the fridge and forget it for 2 months or so. Then remove it, drain and dehydrate until it turns into kimchi chips. Throw those in the blender or in my case my magic bullet and turn into powder. Voila!! Kimchi powder. All the unctuous, spicy, cabbagie goodness in dust form.

If you don’t make your own kimchi there are two other ways to do this. One- go to the grocery story and buy already made kimchi, then dehydrate and grind or if you live near an Asian market you can often find already dehydrated kimchi “chips” in the junk food isle. Grind those up and off you go.

Customize and adapt: 

These DIY recipes are infinitely customizable.  Mix and match as you see fit! In my trials I used gluten free bullion, low sodium bullion and Truvia instead of sugar. Yes, one bullion brand even had….MSG. GASP! But it did not really matter one way or the other. The taste was similar whether I used low sodium, non msg or regular. I prefer the low sodium, gluten free variety myself. But that's just me.

The only thing I have not been able to overcome is the noodle issue. The type of noodle used in classic ramen is a gluten based noodle. That can normally be found in the international isle of your grocery store if you want to buy just the dried noodle. I have experimented with bean thread noodles and they were not bad. I also have tried the Korean glass noodles, made with sweet potato starch, chewy, also not bad, but I have not yet found that PERFECT gluten free noodle that screams I AM RAMEN.  If you have found my missing noodles, let me know where and what brand, I will will be a happy girl. 

Until then, enjoy with your favorite noodle.