The Kitchen

Chicken Fried Rice

/ Jade / 1 Comment

I’m a terrible procrastinator especially on work days when it comes to what’s for dinner. Today I found myself at 3pm once again with no dinner plan. I also happened to be texting with friends and they mentioned that they had made chicken fried rice for Easter dinner yesterday.

Now mind you my husband and I don’t eat peas and he doesn’t really care for carrots both of which are common ingredients in chicken fried rice. I’ve made a few recipes before that neither of us really cared for so I decided to wing it and it came out awesome! So I’m gonna share what I did!

This recipe falls into the THM category E (Energizing) and uses some nice lean chicken with brown rice. The coconut aminos adds amazing flavor without the higher sodium of traditional soy sauce. That in combination with the nutritional yeast make this an amazing and much healthier option than other more traditional recipes!

Chicken Fried Rice

Ingredients

  • 1 cup brown rice
  • 1 cup cold water
  • 2 chicken breasts (about 3 cups) raw cut into cubes
  • 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 2 tbsp minced garlic
  • 1/4 cup coconut aminos
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • salt, pepper, nutritional yeast to taste
  1. Put rice and water into instant and use the rice setting (or 15 mins on high pressure) with a natural release
  2. Heat frying pan over medium eat and melt the butter in it
  3. Add the eggs breaking the yokes and cook til mostly cooked then flip and chop up, remove from pan and set aside once fully cooked
  4. Add 1 tbsp of oil to pan then add onions and garlic, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast. Cook until translucent. Then remove from pan into bowl with eggs.
  5. Add the rest of the oil and the chicken season with salt and pepper. Saute until chicken is just cooked thru.
  6. Add the onions, garlic, eggs, and rice and then add the coconut aminos and soy sauce. Stir to combine. Then taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

Serves 4 THM E

Freezer Meals 1

/ Jade / Leave a comment

With everyone stuck at home and shorter lunch breaks I’m finding myself digging thru the freezer to find something quick and easy, which often means not on my meal plan. On Sunday’s I meal plan and prep some times that means simply figuring out what we are going to eat for the week and writing it down. Other days like to day it means spending a few hours in the kitchen cooking multiple meals!

This weeks meal prep was freezer meals that I can share with my mom and grandparents and focused on ground meals that use ground meat as well as using up some bananas that are starting to get kinda old.

First up was Low Carb Lasagna Meatballs, these are a great make ahead meal that you can freeze. Today I made a single batch but that still gives me 3 meals worth of meatballs. I plan to serve them with Dreamfield spaghetti noodles for a meal that will make the whole family happy!

Secondly I made Cheeseburger Pie from Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook page 149. I cut this recipe in half and made 6 lunch size meals out of it using 3 steamer bags of veggies. I made smaller portions for my grandparents and mom and larger ones for me. These can either be frozen or eaten this week.

I also wanted to throw together some meatballs that we could pull out and server either as subs or with pasta for quick dinner options. My meatball recipe of choice is from Cooks.com. I doubled the recipe and made up bags of 15 meatballs that I can freeze and pull out for a meal!

Lastly I had bananas that needed used up so I threw together 4 batches of Bam Waffles from Trim Healthy Table page 342. These waffles are amazing and easy to throw together, since you simply put all the ingredients in the blender mix it up and cook! They freeze and reheat well making them a perfect weekday breakfast

Homemade Basics

/ Jade / Leave a comment

What a crazy time this is right now! Grocery stores emptied of basically everything! Amazon Prime is taking days to fill Prime orders because most of the control has been told to stay home as much as possible! I’ll be honest, I work from home full time and this whole situation is taking a definite toll.

All that being said, I figured it might be a good time to talk about some of my favorite recipes for some homemade basics. Bread, butter and pasta!

Bread

I’m just gonna admit it, I’m a sucker for homemade bread! I did narrow it down to a few basic recipes for you though.

I absolutely love recipes from Jill at the The Prairie Homestead! I haven’t tried one of her recipes that I didn’t like and, purchased her cookbook as soon as it was available!

Jill Winger from The Prairie Homestead

Check out these bread recipes from her:

  • French Bread – nice and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside this is favorite of Ray’s
  • Honey Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns – I love whole wheat and my grandparents are diabetics so this is a pretty healthy option for them

Butter

Homemade butter is easy and only really requires one or two ingredients, and some elbow grease or a stand mixer! Think back to elementary school, I bet most of you made butter. Pour some heavy cream into a glass jar and shake, and shake, and shake! I actually had one of my boys do this for Christmas dinner this year, he lasted about 30 minutes before we decided to pour it into the stand mixer. And it was super yummy to eat on the fresh baked bread!

For good measure here are the instructions for making butter from The Prairie Homestead. I always make the sweet cream butter, but have heard that cultured butter is excellent.

Pasta

Now pasta can be a little harder depending on what type of noodles you want. But, if you just want basic pasta and don’t care, what shape it is you can get away with just a rolling pin and no other special equipment. (However pasta rollers definitely make it easier!)

As a child, I got spoiled by my grandma and as a result there are certain dishes that I will only server with homemade pasta. The first being my chicken noodle soup and the second is turkey gravel with giblets the day after Thanksgiving!

This recipe from Shaye at The Elliott Homestead is the closest I have ever found to what my grandma taught me from memory!

Check out her book From Scratch! You won’t be disappointed!

Hope you stay safe and healthy as do your families!