quick and easy sweet & sour chicken

It’s  Monday.   need I say more? I’ve spent the day recovering the house from ‘weekend house’.. how do 4 people make such a mess?

Oh yeah.. because I leave a trail everywhere that I go….. oopsie  I should work on that.

It’s just the two girls for dinner tonight ( that I know of, I never really know who will walk through that doors with a pillow in hand and an overnight bag 😉 )

They are also at an away soccer game which means that I have no idea what time they will get home.

I also know that they will be starving!

One of my favorite ways to cook is to take inventory of what I have and come up with an idea.

I have cooked chicken

I have cooked rice ( if I didn’t that would be easy enough to do )

I have a can of mandarin oranges

I have jalapeno in the garden. And a spicy red pepper 😉

I have a small red onion…

Ii’m going to make sweet and sour chicken!

I’m basing it loosely off of THIS recipe…. but I dont; want to use orange food coloring or tons of oil… so this is what I’m thinking….

1~ dice the chicken ..

2~Add a small amount of oil to a saucepan. Sautee onion and peppers just until translucent.

* yes, I buy my vinegar in gallons… I use it to make hom made cleaning solutions 🙂  and just pretend that I had the sugar in this pic….*

3~ To the veggies add

juice from the oranges

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups water

3/4 cup vinegar ( regular old white)

bring to a boil, then reduce heat.

4~ Mix 1/2 cup cornstarch with 1/2 cup COLD water. Stir into sauce & keep stirring until thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

  5~Stir in cooked chicken breast, and drained mandarin   oranges and frozen peas. ( 1/2  cup or so…?)   heat up rice & serve on top !

I also have a few Trader Joe’s potstickers in the freezer, so I’ll cook them up as well.

I love cleaning out the freezer 🙂

If you don’t have cooked chicken, then cube up chicken breast and season with salt & pepper, saute…. then continue.

Or make them the way the original recipe calls. But I think it sounds kinda heavy….

fast forward….. they are home and dinner has been served 🙂

and the girls LOVED this recipe! I’ll certainly be making this for them again… The chicken that I used was actually from a chicken that I cooked a bit back & froze the leftovers.. Next time I make chicken I will cook extra and freeze it again so that I can throw this together on another weeknight 🙂

Laundry Tree has all of the winners addresses, I will let you know as soon as they ship ( they will be coming directly form the company 😉

happy Monday evening, friends!  ….  I’ll be watching the new fall TV line up and working on finishing up the next give away ….

hint.. it’s home made AND I’ll include a tutorial for those who want to be all crafty 🙂

psst… a few of you have asked me about the cleanse…  I have added a ‘page’ over to the right with a complete recap of my last summer and info on what I am currently doing.. I will update by editting in nightly 🙂   smooches