Sweet & Sour Chicken

Hopefully you've all made this before, it's been floating around the internet for a while. But if you haven't you really should. It's great for company and my whole family loves it - yay! Oh, and I usually have everything on the ingredient list. Double yay!

Ingredients

• 1 lb chicken (cut into bite size pieces)
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp garlic salt
• 3/4 cup corn starch
• 2 large eggs, whisked
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• Sweet and sour sauce:
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1/2 cup + 1 TB rice vinegar (I usually use plain distilled or apple cider vinegar)
• 1 TB soy sauce

Instructions

1. Place the chicken, corn starch, salt, pepper and garlic salt in a large ziplock bag and shake until the chicken is evenly coated.
2. Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Dip the chicken in the egg mixture and place in the frying pan with a fork. I did half the batch first. Fry both sides of the chicken for about 2 minutes a piece. Line a baking sheet with foil and place chicken on the pan. Dispose of the burnt oil and then heat up the rest of the oil and finish the chicken.
3. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
4. In a medium size bowl whisk together all of the ingredients for the sauce.
5. Next you'll pour the sauce over the chicken and bake for 20 minutes. Pull the chicken out and flip the chicken to evenly coat it with sauce. Then bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.
6. Serve with steamed rice and veggies.
7. Enjoy!

* Recipe found here:  http://www.iheartnaptime.net/sweet-and-sour-chicken-recipe/

Click over for a printable recipe.

P.S. I spent 20 minutes today drooling over the on-line menu at Olive Garden and Noodles & Company, so if any of you have any copycat recipes you've tried from those places please share with a hungry pregnant lady! :)

Simple Alfredo Sauce

Monday night is Pasta night at our house! This is the Alfredo sauce I use regularly because I generally have all the ingredients on hand. 

1/2 cup butter
1 8oz. cream cheese 
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 c. milk (I usually use 1% but any should work)
6 oz. Parmesan (I just use the bottled/shaker kind)
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic powder and cream cheese (it helps to soften it and cut it in to cubes).  Whisk until smooth. Add milk a bit at a time and keep whisking to smooth out lumps. Stir in Parmesan and pepper. Whisk until sauce reaches desired consistency. Sauce will keep thickening after removed from heat. Add a bit of milk if it gets too thick. Serve over hot pasta. Sometimes I like to add cooked/chopped broccoli to it as well.

*This makes enough to feed my family and we usually have enough leftover to make a chicken alfredo pizza on Saturdays pizza night :)

Fast & Easy Rolls

Ingredients:

about 5 cups all-purpose flour (or ½ white ½ wheat)

2 (.25 ounce) packages dry yeast (4 1/2 tsp)

1 cup milk

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Mix together yeast and 2 1/2 cups of the flour.

2. In a separate bowl heat milk, water, oil, sugar and salt to lukewarm in microwave. (I usually put all these in my pyrex two cup glass measurer and heat for 75 seconds.) Add all at once to flour and yeast and mix well for about 2-3 minutes.

3. Mix in enough flour to make a soft dough - 2 to 3 more cups. Dust surface with flour, turn dough out and cover with bowl, let sit 10 minutes.

4. Shape dough into 12 - 16 balls, and place on greased or parchment lined baking sheet to rise until doubled in size (about 30 minutes), preheat oven to 400.

5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Butter tops when they come out.

* These are our families most favorite rolls. They take just over an hour to make and are super yummy. I’ve tried lots of other recipes that take longer and are more labor intensive and we always come back to these. They are also good for fast cinnamon rolls or hamburger buns. I’ve taken these to lots of friends for dinner and always get asked for the recipe. A winner for sure :)