Comfort Food: Peanut Chicken

I had this idea that I was going to write this epic post about recipe that is a frequent flyer on the dinner circuit in my house. It was going to patriotic. It was going to be swoon worthy.  It was going to disclose the secrets of comfort food. It was going to involve peanut butter.  In fact I was going to make the recipe to make sure I had all my measurements to correct and that I wasn’t missing any steps, since I can make this recipe practically in my sleep.

Then tragedy struck.  Not major tragedy that change the entire course of lives, but more of a dinner tragedy.  My recipe of ultimate comfort food, the one that I could do in my sleep, I totally fucked up on. 

The problem was simple.  The soy sauce and the Worcestershire sauce are in the same shape bottle and they both have a red cap.  Being on auto pilot and not paying attention to what I was actually pulling out of the fridge, (because why would the bottle locations change) I totally dumped half a cup of Worcestershire sauce in my recipe. I then had to scramble to mellow to taste of Worcestershire sauce and make it be friends with the peanut butter.   It may have one of the least spectacular meals I have ever made.  It was a pretender to the throne.  One bite and you knew it wasn’t the infamous peanut chicken, but more of something that had aspirations of being steak and failed. 

The lesson here isn’t that you should always identify your ingredients before you put them in the sauce, but more of don’t become complacent.  Focus on what you are doing even if it something you have done a thousand times before, because maybe that thousand and one time will be different.

Peanut Chicken  

Use the big stir fry pan or a wok.  This is going to make a lot of food. 

2 1/2 Cups Chicken  Cubed

1/2 Cup Diced Onion 

1/4 Cup Diced Peppers

1 Tablespoon Minced Garlic

1/2 Cup Shredded Carrots

1/2 Tablespoon Chinese Five Spice

1 Tablespoon Chili Garlic Sauce

1 Tablespoon sesame oil

1 Tablespoon chili oil

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Sauté everything together until the chicken is cooked through and the carrots are limp. 

Add

1/2 Cup Soy Sauce

2/3 Cup Chunky Peanut Butter

1 Cup of Chicken broth (Water can be used in a pinch)

This should make a rather liquidy sauce.  If it is super thick, add more chicken broth.

Add

2 Cups cooked rice

Brown rice, white rice, doesn’t matter.  Perhaps not wild rice, that doesn’t hold the flavor as well.   Mix everything together until warmed all the way through and then serve.   The sauce should mix and cover all of the rice.  The meat and vegetables should be mixed in evenly, kind of like a fried rice. 

This is one of those foods that also holds well in a crock pot for hours if you were to make a double batch.   It is spicy, yet savory and has all the comforts of home. 

Peanut Chicken Rice

I just came back from a lovely trip visiting friends in Texas and I should be ashamed of all the food I ate.  There is so much good food out there, that I wanted to sample everything, since who knows when I will be in Texas again.  Once the rush of traveling wears off and I am ready to settle in and have some quality time with my husband and cats, I want some comfort food.  Traveling is great and I love trying new things, but there is nothing like home.  

 One of the favorite comfort foods in my home is Peanut Chicken Rice.  It is a filling dish that is easy to make, and is a cross between a fried rice and Thai chicken on stick with peanut dipping sauce. 

Ingredients 

2 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Chili Oil

1 teaspoon Sesame Oil

1-2lbs chicken breast cubed

3 cups cooked white rice

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup shredded carrots*

1/4 cup peas fresh or frozen*

1/4 cup frozen sweet corn*

 1 cup Chunky Peanut Butter

1/3 cup Soy Sauce

1  tablespoon Minced Garlic

2 teaspoons Chili paste

1/2 teaspoon Ginger Powder

1 tablespoon of Sriracha

1 teaspoon of Hoisin sauce 

1/2 Cup Water or Vegetable Broth

In a large sauté pan heat the oils and add the chicken, onions,garlic,ginger powder and chili paste until chicken is cooked and the onions are translucent.  Add the rest of the vegetables and soy sauce until veggies are cooked through.  Add the chunky you peanut butter, Sriracha, hoisin sauce and water/vegetable broth.  The peanut butter will melt as you stir everything together and will become a loose sauce.  If the sauce is thick, you will want to add a little more water or broth until it is smooth and loose .Add the rice and stir it together until it is all mixed well together.  Once the rice is coated in the peanut sauce, and the chicken and vegetables are mixed in, it is ready to serve.  

 *It may look like a bunch of ingredients, but most of the vegetables can be found frozen or you can use a frozen soup mix if you aren't opposed to green beans being in it.  Some people in my house do not like green beans, which is why I try not to use the frozen vegetable soup mix.

Rice & Noodles Simply Vietnamese

There is something sacred about good food. A good meal can make the whole world feel content for just a moment, and make the belief world peace with in a hands grasp.  There are lots of place in Lancaster county that promise contentment by their very name (Intercourse, Bird in Hand, Paradise just to name a few), but I am pretty sure that I found a piece of inner balance and harmony when I partook of a meal at Rice & Noodles.  If there were angels singing and bells ringing, I wouldn't have even noticed, for the amount of bliss I was encompassed in from this meal.

Rice & Noodles is a really tiny eatery, that you could drive past in a blink of an eye. If you didn't know what you were looking for your would miss it. The eatery would be crammed with more than a dozen and half people where there at one time. Thankfully they do take out, or else there could be some major competition for seating.  The first thing that I noticed when entering Rice & Noodles is that the decor reminded me of home kitchen decor. Pictures of vegetables and spices canvased the walls. From my seat in the middle of the room I was able to see part of the kitchen and their beautiful display of french macaroons.  In a way it made me feel like I was visiting my mother after a long absence and being grilled, "Have you et yet? Sit down, I am going to fix you something, you look like you are starving."

The menu was extremely tempting. Having never been to Rice &Noodles before, I took a veteran with me, to at least get her recommend to get started.  Right away we agreed on macaroons, but I can't eat desert first. We both ordered the Jasmine Tea with Lime (Tra Da Chanh).  The first sip is reminiscent of a punch to the face. On a dreary Thursday afternoon I was not expecting the intense lime flavoring to slap me in the face and have me begging for more. After the shock of lime, the flavoring mellowed out a little bit to remind me of a margarita, but without the harsh bite of alcohol.  Or maybe a little bit of the cachaca, if you have ever had it muddled with limes.  If the Jasmine Tea with Lime was any indication, everything was going to be a symphony of taste.

I know that a lot of people don't put a lot of stock in appetizers, because they are already getting a meal and most of the time appetizers don't do their job. The job of an appetizer is to stimulate the desire to eat at the beginning of a meal with small portion of food. I like appetizers, they give me a good idea on the quality of the food I am going to get without having to order more food then I can can eat.  Sausage spring rolls (Goi Cuon Nem Nuong) was the random choice that was made for our appetizers by me, because it sounded good, but everything sounded good. What came out was not good. What came out, good does not even begin to describe.  This seemingly simple looking appetizer rocked my world off kilter for a moment. It was as if I had found a golden ticket in my candy bar. I don't think I could replicate the beauty that happened with the melody of flavors that danced upon my tongue. The peanut sauce that was served with it, was completely and utterly without flaw.   This appetizer knew its job, because by the end of this delicious morsel I was utterly ready for any sort of main course that was set before me, because I had just been granted a moment of food clarity.  This was going to be awesome. 

I can tell you what I ordered but don't even think of asking me to pronounce it. It will only sound like Klingon coming out of my mouth.  Do Xao Ap Chao or for those that slaughter languages even their native it is DX3 Crispy with Chicken.  It has been a while since I have seen a meal so visually pleasing as the Do Xao Ap Chao  is to behold.  The beauty of seasoned vegetables, pineapples and tomatoes stir fried in a spicy garlic sauce topped with cilantro, served with crispy pan fried rice noodles and chicken warms a hungry spot in my heart.  My lunch companion to Rice & Noodles had highly recommended this dish, because it was one of her favorites. I can understand why. It was utterly lovely to eat and I am not sure what I am in love with more, the spicy garlic sauce or the pan fried rice noodles.
 The sauce covered everything and had such a delicate rich flavor that it never once became oppressive. The pan fried rice noodles have never crossed my realm of experience before, so the soft yet crunchy vehicle for the sauce was certainly a novelty. Would I order this dish again? Yes. A thousand times yes. It is hard to recall such a meal in recent history that after I have finished every last possible morsel, that I feel rejuvenated and want to take on the world all at once.

Just when I am ready to take on the world, there are french macaroons that taunt me.  There have a beautiful assortment of french macaroons.  There are a wider variety of flavors and fillings and despite splitting a box of six of their chocolate ganache (Peanut butter, Strawberry and Coconut Almond with the rich ganache filling) with my companion, I ended up buying several boxes of macaroons to take home and share with my husband. The delicate meringue like cookie with a captivating heart of gold was a beautiful finish to a perfect meal.

I would highly recommend Rice & Noodles. If you are looking for something that doesn't hop on the Amish band wagon that most of the Lancaster County promotes (it isn't like it is a bad thing), but would like a satisfying dining experience for not that much money, then Rice & Noodles is the answer to your unasked question.  Rice & Noodles is so good, that I am looking to plan a day around things I can do in Lancaster if it means I can stop here for lunch and experience a little bit more of world peace and harmony  for my taste buds if even just for a moment.

Pilfered By A Cat

It has been documents that some animal have a sixth sense for natural disaster. There have been reports of hens not laying eggs, cows not giving milk, dogs dancing in circles  hours and sometimes even minutes before the unforeseeable strikes. Cats and dogs are said to be a lot closer to nature and therefore more likely to be aware of the rumblings of mother earth. 
Knowing this, I can't help but wonder what Iggins is trying to tell me, because is behavior gets odder and odder. The evidence starts out as it simply being a cat, but as it piles up one has to wonder what the cat knows. 

• At Christmas, Iggins had secreted 8 toy mice into a secret stash. With him being a cat I didn't think too much of it, until he started to secret other things.  
• I love tea and have a pretty good selection of loose leaf tea.  Iggins had attacked the tea, and removed it out of the pantry and spilled a good bit of it all across the kitchen floor. 
• There was a package of graham crackers from the cabinet. We were alerted to the pilfered graham crackers by the crackling of package as the Iggins tried to covertly move grahams from under the bed to his secret stash.  We had the move the crackers into the night stand, so that he could no longer reach them. 
• A few weeks later, I come home and see a shiny square golden cube on the floor. I pick it up and discover that it is the bouillon out of the cabinet. Checking the cabinet, I quickly assimilated that the three packets of bouillon had been pilfered.  With much searching, I was able to recover all of the bouillon, except one. I have no idea where the one cube is at. 
• A week and half after that, I am in the library. I am trying to reorganize the books, since I had just built a new shelf.  Glancing in the hall, I see Iggins with a stick of bouillon again. I can tell that he is not all that thrilled that I have once again taken away his treasure. 
• A week after that, Jon stopped Iggins from removing a small bag of rice out of the cabinet. I am not entirely sure how far he was going to get with a bag of rice.
• A couple of days after the "rice" incident, Iggins comes barreling down the stairs, which is a sure sign to the humans around that he has something that he know that he shouldn't have. After much negotiation and some hard corning of him, it was discovered that he had a contact carrying case. 

Individually these items, don't seem like they have a lot in common. Tea, Mice, Graham Crackers, Rice, Bouillon. Until I suddenly realized that if I were preparing for the worse, I would try to make sure that my family was taken care of.  Iggins is trying to take care of his family. He stashed the mice for him and Dib for incase of emergency, and then he was trying to create a food stash for Jon and I, so that we would not be forced to dine on kitty flesh.  The only reason that I could think that Iggins would be doing this is if he saw the zombie apocalypse coming and needed time to prepare. That is right, if you look into the eyes of Iggins, you see the fear and raw kitty nerves of one that can see the future, and in this future he see, he tries to prepare to save the ones that he loves, or at least the ones with the operable thumbs.