Loaves and Fishes

Last night I had a bit of an impromptu dinner party- as in I discovered that I was feeding 8 people dinner.  Now,  I love feeding people dinner, but it caught me off guard at 5:30 pm...and I only had 1.1 pounds of chicken thawed on the counter.  Hmmmm...8 people, 1 pound of chicken, about 1 hour, this was going to be  a challenge--and I dig a good food challenge!

Having been out of town all weekend, my cupboard rations were sparse.  But, I knew I had quite a few random veggies in the fridge.  Sounds like a stir fry night!

This was the result, and it was delicious if I do say so myself!:

Prepare first in a glass bowl (I use a 4 cup pyrex measuring cup)

• 2/3 cup of reduced sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup of rice vinegar
• spoonful of minced garlic (in the glass jar) with some of the liquid
• a sprinkle of ginger
• a squirt of Siracha Chili Sauce (depending on how spicy you like it)
• a small bunch of sliced green onions

Dice the chicken into bite-sized pieces and put into the sauce to marinade

In a separate large bowl chop up your veggies.  I used everything I had in the fridge, but in stir fry you can use whatever veggies you like or have on hand.  Even frozen veggies work great- like broccoli, cauliflower, and pea pods.  Anyhow, I used:

• 1/3 of a fresh pineapple cut into chunks
• 1 large zucchini
• 1 red pepper
• green onions
• fresh mushrooms (sliced)
• kale (finely chopped)

Drizzle some olive oil into the bottom of a wok and add the chicken.  Do not use all of the sauce yet, just the chicken at this point.  Set the sauce aside.  Cook the chicken until it is no longer pink.

Then, turn down the heat and slowly add in all of the veggies.  Pour the rest of the sauce into the wok and give it all a good stir.  Cover the wok and stir every few minutes.  When the veggies are soft, but not mushy, it is done.  Just make sure that the sauce has been brought to a good boil as it was in contact with raw meat when used as a marinade.

I cooked some whole-grain spaghetti noodles in a separate pot and added them into the stir fry at the last minute.  This allows the noodles to soak up some of the delicious sauce.  Serve over rice (I used a combination of long grain white and brown rice in the rice cooker).  Not bad for 1 pound of chicken.  Heck, we even had leftovers!