Sesame Noodles with Chicken

This isn’t exactly a new recipe, but I do not think we started making it until we lived in Washington, so it counts.   🙂  

Last night was my daughters preschool Halloween social.  They didn’t have their normal afternoon class in order for us to have this family pot luck in the evening.  Sign up began last week.  Since I am always running late in dropping her off for school, I got stuck with a main dish.  I didn’t mind though, because due to trying to make more actual meals, I had some in mind.  At first I was going to make a dish called Easy Baked Ziti.  Sounds easy right since it has the word Easy?  Well, it is easy, but takes 55 minutes to cook.  The grandparents are in town and we had been out sailing during the day (and timing never works out when family are involved) so we didn’t have time to make that.  Going through my recipe’s… I remembered this one.  And since I have a ton of chicken, I thought it would be perfect.

This recipe is easy for us now since we usually have all of the ingredients on hand, minus the scallions.  I know most people may not have all of the vinegars or sauces on hand, but they are pretty cheap and last a long time.  Since the main ingredients are chicken and spaghetti, it’s a kid favorite.   There is also minimal chopping involved so I can make this while I have my 2 kids running around.   We also almost always double it since chicken usually comes in bigger packages then 1/2lb.  

Source: Weight Watchers

PREP12 Min

COOK10 Min

 

Ingredients

• 1/2 lbs spaghetti uncooked whole-wheat
• 1/2 cup scallions green parts only, chopped
• 1/2 lb chicken thigh cooked, skinless, boneless, cut into thin strips  (I’ve also made it with chicken breasts and it’s great)
• 3 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 Tbsp dark sesame oil
• 2 tsp chili sauce with garlic
• 1.5 tsp honey
• 1 Tbsp cilantro fresh, finely chopped
• 2 tsp sesame seeds

Directions

Cook noodles according to package directions. Remove 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water; drain and rinse.

In a large bowl, combine noodles, scallions and chicken; toss gently, but well.

In a cup, combine reserved cooking water, vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oil, chili sauce and honey; stir well.

Pour vinegar mixture over noodles; toss gently but well to coat noodles. Sprinkle with cilantro and sesame seeds; serve.

Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff

This recipe comes from one of my families favorite cook books.  The $7 A Meal Slow Cooker Cookbook.  We’ve made several recipe’s from there and generally loved them all.  I had typed this into my meal planning program Plan to Eat and decided on using it based on the type of meat that I had in the fridge that needed to leave in order to make space for a large quantity of chicken (more on that later).

It’s a pretty simple meal that didn’t take too long to prep.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 pound beef top round steak (cut into 1-inch pieces)
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 1 tablespoon mustard
• 1 cup Beef Stock
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Prep involves cutting the steak and tossing it with the flour, salt and pepper.

You put the onion, garlic and carrots into the slow cooker and put the meat on top.  Let it cook on HIGH for 8-9 hours.

When those first hours are almost up, you can prepare the sauce.

Medium bowl – combine sour cream and cornstarch with 1 cup of the liquid in the crock pot.

*this was a little trick since I didn’t have much

you mix it well, put it back into the crock pot and cook on high another 25-30 min.

We served it over rice, but for a more true stroganoff you could do noodles.

 

Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff

It was delicious and will definitely be making again!

Crock Pot Maple Salmon

My goal is to make a brand new meal every Sunday.  Today, I needed to make some room in my freezer for 40 lb. of chicken that I am going to be getting tomorrow.  So, off to google I went in search of Salmon recipes.  I found this one on http://getcrocked.com.     I immediately loved it because it seemed simple and it could be used with a crock pot.

I don’t usually cook fish.  We have had some in our freezer since early this year when we took a trip to Pike Place Market.  Today was the day.  

I found all of the pieces to the crock pot and plugged it in.  The recipe doesn’t really say how much fish to use, so I used two 1 lb filets.  I simply cut them out of their shrink wrap and put them frozen into the bottom of the pot.  Next step was to mix up the maple syrup, lime juice, soy sauce, garlic and ginger root (I cheated and use minced ginger that I keep in the fridge)  and pour it over the fish.  That’s it!  Set it on high for 2 hours and it was done.  I made up some Jasmine rice to serve under the fish.

Photo from getcrocked.com

It was awesome!  The kids even liked it and the 2 yr old had seconds.    We saved enough for my husband to take to work with him for lunch tomorrow and a small portion for myself. 

Verdict – 5 stars!  Will definitely be making this one again.

I’ve created a blog!!!

Hi everyone,

As as stay at home mom, I’ve been searching for things to do, ways to identify myself as something besides just a stay at home mom (SAHM).  Now I know that while some people would love to “just” be a SAHM, after having worked steadily since high school until our move to WA, I was having a hard time adjusting.

I am active in many things though, I work in both of my children’s preschool classes, and am on their school board as Secretary.  I am also very active in my local mommies group occasionally hosting what we call “Ugly Coffee”.

So back to the purpose of this blog.  In my searching of ways to be both minimal, frugal and searching for an identity, I have decided to let you all in on what I’ve been doing.  Things that have worked, things that haven’t and all of my trials and tribulations along the way.  With probably more than one picture of my children thrown in for good measure.

Enjoy!

Photo taken by Bright Eyes Photographs  (fellow WA newbie!)