P.F. Chang's Orange Peel Chicken

Whew. Been busy.

Took time out this weekend to go to the Royal Gorge Bridge and to invite friends over for dinner! For dinner I made Orange Chicken---SO YUMMY! After I had prepared it I told Sam dinner was ready. I suggested we eat outside since it was such a lovely evening. Little did I know he would take that to the extreme! Within minutes, we were carrying our table and chairs, plates and silverware into the open field in our back yard. Yes. We had a picnic!

Picnic in the field.

This is the only picture I have of the orange chicken--- It was so delicious!

Sam enjoying the picnic.

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Orange Peel Chicken

Adapted from Todd Wilbur, Top Secret Restaurant Recipes

1 tbsp veggie oil

2 tbsp garlic

4 green onions

1 cup tomato sauce

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp chili garlic sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

peel from 1/4 orange, julienned (into 1/8 inch strips)

a squeeze or two from said orange.

1 pkg pancit kanton noodles (sub spaghetti noodles if you must!)

1/2 cup veggie oil

4 chicken breast fillets cut into bite size pieces

1/2 cup cornstarch

Heat oil. Add garlic and onions (sliced). Add sauce and other ingredients. Stir to boiling. Once boiling turn heat to low and simmer for 7-10 minutes to thicken.

Boil a large saucepan full of water. Add pancit kanton noodles. They are done when the noodles are soft. Drain and set aside.

Coat chicken chunks in cornstarch ( I mixed them in a tupperware bowl ). Heat oil. Add chicken to oil. Stir chicken in oil to turn so it evenly cooks. Cook til all pink is gone and drain chicken on a few paper towels.

Add sauce and chicken to noodles. Stir well.

Enjoy!

Tips:

--I found the chili garlic sauce and noodles in the oriental section of my grocery.

--Don't skimp on ingredients! I added baby corn and water chestnuts as well as red peppers to the mix and those ingredients did nothing but add to the flavor.

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We had so much fun at the picnic. It was so lovely out there and such a great change from the usual "dining room table" scene. I'd recommend a picnic or even enjoying supper outside with loved ones and friends! Try something new. Go crazy!

Royal Gorge Bridge!

Our friends Jenna and Spencer and Sam and I.

Love, Love, Love

Life happens.

The Air Force Life Song Competition is officially over. Now I wait for the results. I have no clue how long it will take to get the results. I'm so excited! Winner will be notified by email.

I've never done anything like this---it was quite invigorating. It gave me a bit of confidence. It helped me realize I can do what I set my mind to, that I can achieve my goals, and that I might have a winning chance at this.

I've realized recently how many excuses I make. "I don't have time to work out," or "It will take too long to bake a cake." A friend told me "Stop making excuses for what you're not willing to do" and "If you want it, you'll make time and effort for it." Food for thought. What have you been procrastinating on? What things do you avoid doing because you are covered with excuses? Live life and live it to the full, dear friend.

Chin up.

Chaos!

Boy howdy. I haven't had time to bake anything lately. I've been working out my work schedules, trying to spend time with Sam, and actually working.

Sam goes back to nights tonight--4pm-5am. I work from 2 til midnight. When, dare I ask, will we be able to see each other or spend time together?! The poor puppies! So neglected. :)

It's nice to have another job so we can pay some bills. I just have to get used to not having all that free time to workout or spend time with family or friends.

In other news, we got the car fixed a few days ago. We got the car back and saw they didn't take care of the back end where it was crinkled out. Sam took it back this morning and they fixed it up for us! Bad thing about it was sam backed up into a yellow pole and now we have a yellow scratch on our car. Man. Can anything ever go right!?

I have 6 days left in the song competition. Who knows if I'll win. I hope! I'm kinda making myself believe I won't so that if I do, I'll be totally surprised and excited and if I don't win, it won't be a huge deal.

I hope to make some wonderful cakes soon! Stay posted!

Have a great day!

Tiny Cakes

Tiny Cheesecakes!

For Christmas last year, my mother bought me a couple of jumbo cupcake tins. I enjoy making muffins and cupcakes with them but wanted to put my extra cheesecake batter to use.

I made a 10 inch cheesecake tonight. It's a big pan for just 1 cheesecake recipe, so I used 1.5x the recipe instead of doubling it so I wouldn't have so much left over. It worked out perfectly.

I made my usual shortbread crust. I love making shortbread crusts for my cheesecake because they turn out light and simple. This shortbread recipe could work out great if you wanted to make shortbread cookies as well.

Basic Shortbread

1 pound butter (whipped 'til it yelps, or about 5 minutes)

1 cup powdered sugar

3 1/2 cups flour

a dash of cinnamon

3 tbsp vanilla

Whip the butter. Add the powdered sugar slowly to the butter. Add the rest of the ingredients and whip until incorporated. Spread over the bottom of a springform pan lined with parchment paper. If you'd like to make cookies, simply drop a spoonful onto an ungreased pan. If you'd like, put a nut or piece of chocolate on top. Bake until golden brown.

After my shortbread crust is over the springform pan, I make my cheesecake.

Tonight, since I had quite a bit shortbread and cheesecake batter left over, I grabbed those jumbo muffin tins and got to work. I put a large spoonful of shortbread into the bottom of the liners, smooshed it flat, and then added a few dollops of batter on top. I only filled the cups a tad over halfway full. I have yet to bake them-- I am baking my large cheesecake for 40 minutes, then I will add my tiny cakes, and let them both cook for an additional 20 minutes before turning the oven off and letting them cool there.

I have found that one place offers a great deal on individual cream cheese packages--- The Commissary. They offer Cooper Brand Cream Cheese for $0.99. Usually, Walmart or Safeway offers Philadelphia Cream Cheese for only $1.50 on a good day. I could of course go to Costco or Sam's Club to purchase the 3 pound blocks of cream cheese for $5.00. Only saving a buck, but hey, it's a buck.

Do I tire of making my cheesecakes? No. Sometimes I feel silly buying 8-16 packages of cream cheese at a time. " Making a large cheeseball?" you ask? Sort of. :)

I found another job--- which is wonderful financially. That avenue will be good upon which to continue testing my recipes and promoting the restaurant. I'll still bake my goodies for the restaurant. I just wish we could bring in a tad more business to give us some breathing room to really explode with new recipes and dishes.

On a side note, I made that chocolate cake again but this time with a mixer. The results were not as good as when I mixed it by hand. No, it wasn't that the cake tasted amazing the first time because I poured my heart and soul into whisking and stirring that heavy batter! Literally, the cake was less flavorful and not as fluffy as the original. I didn't switch out ingredients or anything. Interesting...eh?

Hope you are well!

Quick Chili

I don't know about you, but I've never been a fan of "canned" meals---canned spaghetti sauce, canned chili, etc. I think I have bought maybe one or two cans of said 'fake foods' because I feel that by purchasing them I support a cheating lifestyle. Yes. Using either jarred spaghetti sauce or chili mixes endorse an unfaithful lifestyle---at least when it comes to cooking.

Here's my quick chili recipe. This recipe makes enough for about 10 bowls (plenty to take for lunches for the next few days or chili dogs in the evening)!

Jenna's Chili

2 lbs ground beef

1 red pepper

1 onion

2 garlic cloves (or at least 3 tbsp garlic powder if not more)

6 slices of jalapeno (more or less depending on your heat tolerance. 6 slices will get you nowhere)

3 cans tomato sauce (regular size)

1 can diced tomatoes (regular size)

1/2C to 1C brown sugar

3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

chili powder (to taste)

Optional (to taste)

chives

ground mustard

salt

Brown ground beef and chop into bite size bits. Drain juice.

Chop onion, jalapeños, and pepper into small bits. Add garlic and chili powder (and other spices) and stir fry for about 2 minutes.

Pour all the tomato ingredients, vinegar, and sugar into a large stockpot.

Mix the ground beef into the stockpot. Add the onion/pepper mix. Stir well. Cook over medium heat until bubbly and then turn to low.

Let cook on low until you are ready to eat if you are planning on eating it within an hour. If you want to prep this in advance, transfer it all into a crockpot and adjust settings to "keep warm." I see no need to even turn the crockpot on low or high---it's already cooked, now you are letting the flavors set in. Chili gets better with age until a certain point where there is no return...Make a day ahead!

This chili is mild. It has plenty of spice yet a sweetness that offsets the tomato. If you are feeling frisky, add a bit more garlic or some chili's to the mix. I'm sure you could add beans as well, but that's just not my thing. :)

Life is good. Some things change, some things don't. I am thankful above all that I have my God who still believes in me, my husband who stands by my side, my family who puts up with me, and my friends who laugh with me. Amidst life's pain, trouble, unforeseen circumstances and events, one can be thankful for breath and life.

Things aren't always what they seem and sometimes things seem bad. At one moment, life as you know it ceases to function at the news of a tragedy or a heartbreak. Within minutes or hours the wheels start turning again and you remember that the world never did stop turning, as you did. Life goes on. Life is good.

Be well. Until next time!

Chocolate Cake Take 2

My lovely friends invited Sam and I over for dinner last night. We had a delicious meal with fantastic company. Afterwards, the boys wanted to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The ladies in the house did not want to watch that movie... so we baked!

We made cupcakes from that chocolate cake recipe I recently posted. We even made the cupcakes in ZEBRA print cupcake liners! HOW fun is that?

Upon tasting the cupcakes, I realized that this really is the greatest chocolate cake recipe ever. The cake is mild and not heavy or thick with chocolate. Leave it up to the frosting to remedy that.

What new recipes shall be coming up? Only time will tell!

The Absolute Best Chocolate Cake

It is my brother in law and mother in law's birthday on Friday. What better reason to drive home to Kansas and hand deliver a delicious cake?!

Honestly, I've never had much luck with white/yellow cake recipes. For some reason, they always turn out like corn bread. At least they just taste like it to me. It would either be a chocolate cake or a red velvet cake. Since I didn't want to whip out my red food dye I decided to make a chocolate cake.

My usual chocolate cake recipe is...good. It works. It hasn't really failed me in regards to flavor. It's spilled over a few times and sometimes it's not as light as I'd like it to be. All the same, the flavor is mild chocolate and not overpowering. Usually when you buy a cake from the grocery it will be so chocolatey that your tastebuds will be choco-burned the next morning and you couldn't bring yourself to eat a teaspoon of sugar even if your life depended upon it. I pride myself on my mild chocolate cake! YUM!

Since I left my recipe books at the restaurant I decided to find another chocolate cake recipe. I have bookmarked over 60 recipes for sweets and desserts here on my computer. I figured I could find a good chocolate cake recipe in there somewhere!

Like a flash of lightning from the heavens above---"Moist Devil's Food Cake" lit up in my gaze. I was dumbfounded as I looked at the picture of a sample cake using this recipe. Three layers of rich and moist chocolate cake between shiny chocolate ganache! Oh boy howdy--the angels sang.

The joyous melody of the heavenly beings came to a screeching halt. "Where are my mixers?" I asked myself out loud. Instantly, I remembered. I left those at work as well. What's a woman to do but go old...old...fashioned and mix everything by hand?

I jotted down the recipe and assembled my ingredients along with a heavy duty bamboo spoon, a whisk, and a spatula.

Moist Devil's Food Cake

(Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, 2006)

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened (plus a bit more for the pans)

2 1/4 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup boiling water

3/4 cup cocoa (plus a bit more for the pans)

1 cup whole milk

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

*note* I mixed all of this by hand. The cake came out like a dream. I'd recommend giving your mixers a break for once!

Whisk your butter until it is creamy and smooth.

Add the sugar and stir/whisk until fully incorporated.

Dump the sugar into the mix and enjoy the aroma.

Break the 4 eggs into the sugar/butter mixture and stir until it is all incorporated.

Butter, Whisked

Butter and sugar, mixed

With the boiling water in a large bowl, slowly add the cocoa and milk alternately and stir (not whisk--the chocolate will get caught in the whisking hooks) constantly. It will become very thick and hard to stir if you wait to add the milk until you've mixed the chocolate and water. When it looks like it is starting to thicken up nicely you can whisk. Set aside.

I used Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa. AMAZING taste.

The aftermath of the cocoa/milk fiasco--lesson learned. Add the cocoa and milk to the boiling water together to avoid clumpage.

Sift the flour, soda, and salt into a bowl.

See all the clumps? Sifting the flour mix will eliminate those clumps and make a smooth batter.

Pour the flour and cocoa mixtures into the butter mix, alternating between the flour mixture and the cocoa milk mixture. Stir with your long spoon in figure eight or circular motions towards your body and away from.

The first addition of flour and cocoa/milk

More flour, please!

The last addition of cocoa/milk--look how dark the cocoa is!

The final batter. The spoon almost stood straight up in it! Thick stuff!

Grease your pans with butter and sprinkle cocoa inside the pans. Shake pans to coat with cocoa well. The batter will not be runny, but thick. Use a spatula to spoon batter into pans and smooth even.

(I used four 7 inch aluminum pans and had no batter left over. You could use three 8 inch pans or even two 9 inch pans I'm sure. I'm not a fan of using those long rectangular pans--but if you want to, go for it!)

Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out of the center clean. My 7 inch pans took about 25-35 minutes.

Enjoy!

GREAT chocolate cake. I'd make it again!

Fondue for you!

It's been a crazy week. My absence must be excused!

As I stated in my last post, I entered a song competition! Vote daily for my song! http://www.myairforcelife.com/contests/songs_frame.cfm?view=78&category=1 If I win, I plan on buying a baby grand piano with the prize: $2000 gift card to musiciansfriend.com.

I was not having a good day on Sunday. I woke up and started to make tea on the stove for Sam's daily dose of sweet tea. It started out normal-- a clean 3 gallon glass jar, a full saucepan of boiling water with steeping teabags, and sugar ready for deployment.

I let the teabags steep for about 10 minutes. I then grabbed the saucepan and slowly poured the tea into the glass jar. After pouring all the tea inside, I walked away with the saucepan and started to rinse out the pan. About 10 seconds later, I heard a few grinding sounds and cracking noises---I turned just in time to see the whole 3 gallon jar, half full of tea, shifting off it's base and cracking--tea flowing over the counter and all over the floor.

Thankfully, the jar stayed on the base but just shifted--the glass didn't break or fall onto the floor.

Happy Jenna.

I was so upset. Little did I know that later that night I would be receiving a glass shard in my foot.

ON TO BIGGER and more positive things!

A few months ago, my wonderful husband took me out on a date to The Melting Pot-- a fancy fondue restaurant. Ever since then, I knew I was in love with fondue. The whole idea of dipping so many fruits, veggies, and meats into a cheesy sauce or an oil boil makes my heart flutter.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Fondue, it's a whole meal experience. One has a cheese fondue with dippers such as bread pieces, apples, veggies, or chips. The cheese is melted in a fondue pot over a tealight or a stronger flame (or can be electric). The guests use long forklike sticks to dip said delights into the cheese. Another fondue is an oil fondue where a person has raw meat that they dip into the oil until the meat boils done (each piece of meat takes about 2 minutes). My favorite type of fondue is the dessert fondue--- melted chocolate! Basically, melt chocolate and whipping cream, add some peanut butter, flavors, or crushed up nuts/graham crackers. Dippers include strawberries, cheesecake, bananas, marshmallows, cake, or pineapples! You can really just go crazy choosing your dippers!

I bought a fondue set at a garage sale a few weeks ago for $7.00 (yay bargains!). Only problem with it was that it didn't have a ceramic insert or a nonstick inner bowl---it was all metal. Metal and chocolate/cheese fondue do not mix. I was craving fondue but needed that insert. I bit the bullet and bought an electric fondue bowl.

The recipe of choice was a simple Swiss fondue. After assembling the ingredients for the fondue and for the dippers, I started to prep.

Fondue takes a lot of prep work. A person must cut up everything they plan to use as dippers into bite size pieces. This means using about 6 mini baguettes for four people, boiling the broccoli and chopping into smaller pieces, cutting and cleaning the veggies too. For the dessert fondue, it doesn't feel like work! You can snag a couple of bites of strawberries or cheesecake...and call it even.

Original Swiss Fondue

(from The Fondue Bible, Ilana Simon)

8oz Emmentaler cheese, grated

8oz Gruyere cheese, graterd

1 1/2 tbsp flour

1 garlic clove, halved

1 1/4 C dry white wine (I used Mad Housewife Chardonnay)

(Refrigerate grated cheeses until you are ready to use them)

In a bowl, combine the grated cheeses and flour. Mix very well. Set aside.

Rub the inside of a saucepan/fondue bowl with the garlic clove. Discard garlic.

Add wine to bowl and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Add cheese mixture to bowl by handfuls, stirring constantly after each addition in a figure eight motion until all cheese is incorporated and melted. Put pot on a warmer just enough to keep the cheese warm and melted, but not bubbly or boiling.

Enjoy!

I found that a whisk was nice to use when adding cheese, but it seemed to get the cheese tangled up inside the whisk hooks, so I used a bamboo long spoon instead and it worked great. Because I'm a fan of spices, I used garlic and some ground yellow mustard in the cheese as well. I stirred both in while the cheese was melting.

This Swiss fondue has a tangy flavor to it. It is strong but not overpowering. I found that my favorite dippers for this cheese fondue are apples (Yes!), bread, and broccoli. You could also use boiled potatoes, blanched red peppers, mushrooms, or even zucchini rounds.

Chocolate Fondue

3/4C Whipping cream

12 oz chocolate, chopped

2 tbsp kirsch, kahlua, or other liqueur (optional)

Heat cream until warm (do not boil or burn). Add chocolate and stir constantly until melted and smooth.

Dippers:

Apple Wedges, pineapple chinks, cherries, strawberries, bananas, pound cake cubes, marshmallows, rice crispy treat cubes, almonds, orange slices.

You could use dark chocolate or milk chocolate. Milk Chocolate is very sweet! I used milk chocolate morsels. It took a while for them to melt but I felt safer using those than a baking bar. If you double this recipe, you will have enough chocolate for 2 fondue gatherings or if you really enjoy chocolate, one!

Adaptations:

Rocky Road: Add 1-2tbsp graham crumbs and 1 1/2 c mini marshmallows.

Peanut Butter Chocolate: Add 1/2 c peanut butter and chopped peanuts to the chocolate.

White Chocolate: sub white chocolate for brown chocolate and add 1 1/2tsp coconut rum.

YUM!