Chicken and Black Bean Sauce

We were supposed to be having Beef and Black Bean suace tonight, but I mucked up my shopping list, and ended up short on steak. Still, chicken works quite well with the sweetness of black beans, and it went down quite well. Master Four emptied his plate, and while Miss Two had a little left over, she is fighting off a cold at the moment. Besides, her comment was that the dinner in her mouth made her very happy. Can't ask for better than that can you?

Was a very simple dish to make too. I put some rice on to cook, and while that simmered away, I sliced some broccoli, bok choy, onion, and green capsicum, along with two chicken breast fillets. Browned the onion, and then the chicken, added the broccoli to fry a little. I used a whole jar of KanTong Black Bean sauce, but I could have gotten away with two thirds of a jar, if not as little as half. Then I added the bok choy stems and the capsicum, and cooked until the sauce was hot. I turned the heat off and stirred through the bok choy leaves, which cooked from the residual heat while I was dishing up the rice.

I'm supposed to be making Calzones tomorrow, but I have a doctors appointment tomorrow afternoon, so it will depend on how long they keep me at the hospital. They wanted me to stay and get induced yesterday, so I have to go in every few days it seems to get ultrasounds and heart rate checks. Bubs is moving heaps though, so things should be ok for me to come home again tomorrow.

Chicken Parmagiana, with chips, bok choy and mushrooms

As you can see, I'm still working out how to use my new camera. Taking photos without getting excess glare from the extremely bright flash seems to be a problem, as does focusing. I know I've got a digital zoom, but I haven't figured out yet how to use it. Ah well, all in good time. At least the pictures are somewhat less blurry, and big enough to see now.

Dinner was nothing particularly special, just the parmas we were going to have on Wednesday till I got lazy. But it is a family favourite, and the bok choy with garlic, bacon and mushrooms was praticularly nice. Nothing elaborate - just slice about 5 or 6 mushrooms, and two cloves of Australian garlic (it's stronger, for chinese I'd use about 4) and fry on low heat in a pan with no oil or butter. I used the pan I'd fried the parmas in, but there was very little, if any, butter left in it. Chop up some bacon, I used one short cut rindless rasher, but that's all I had left, otherwise I'd probably use two. Add that to the pan too, and bring the heat up to high. While that's frying off, chop a bok choy in half, slicing the whites into managable pieces (if you have toddlers) and then add them. Do the same for the leaves, but only add at the very last minutes, and remove from the heat as soon as they begin to wilt and go bright green.

I always cheat with our parmagianas, I buy pre-crumbed chicken schnitzels from the butcher. Then all I really do in the way of cooking, is fry them till golden on both sides, and season a little. Then I throw them in an oven tray, smear them with pasta sauce from a jar, top them with a slice of ham (or if I'm feeling expansive, a lightly fried slice of bacon) and cover with cheese. Then I stick the lot in the oven till the cheese is melted and golden brown. Usually this is about the time the chips are done. Easy, but effective. It's not the best Chicken Parma DP has ever tasted (his sister holds the honour of making that) but it's good enough that he'll request it every now and then, and that's good enough for me.

Dessert post coming soon... the timer only just went off!

Lemon Honey Chicken

Lemon Honey Chicken with Onion, Capsicum and Bok Choy
500g skinless chicken breasts (about 2), thinly sliced
1 large brown onion, sliced in half, then in thin chunks
1 green capsicum, sliced in thin strips
1 baby Bok Choy, sliced into bite sized strips/pieces
2 tbsps honey
2 tbsps water
1 (100g) pkt McCormick's Lemon Chicken with Honey concentrated sauce base
rice or noodles to serve

Lightly brown onion at high heat, then add the chicken in batches. When the chicken is brown, add the capsicum and the whites of the bok choy. Stir in the flavour base, honey and the water. Simmer for around 10 minutes, or just let boil/fry on high heat until your rice is ready and the sauce is the consistency you'd like (as I did ;) ) Add the bok choy leaves, stir quickly then remove from heat and serve.

Hey, it may be cheating to use a premade sauce concentrate, but it was worth it. Although Master Three proclaimed that Lemon Chicken was "yuck" several times during the day, after hearing the response to his frequent "what are we having for dinner?" there was no such dramas at the dinner table itself. I told him it was Lemon Honey Chicken, and that he liked lemon, and honey so he had to eat it all. By the time I got to the table after dishing out the adult serves, half of it was gone, and he was barely pausing for breath in between shovelling his mouth as full as it could get. His only comment? "I love Lemon Chicken!" And everyone else liked it too. So... we have another keeper.

When I decided to make this, I was thinking of the powdered sauce mix, that was a yellow packet, with a purple stripe for the heading, and it had snow peas and baby corn spears in the serving suggestion picture. I can't remember the brand, but either it's not made anymore, or my local independant supermarket simply doesn't stock it. That was a lovely sweet lemony flavour, not highly authentic tasting, but delicious, and I'd had a hankering for it. The flavour base sauce however, made a dark soy-sauce coloured sauce, very authentic chinese type flavour. It was delicious, but not quite what I personally was after. Now I wish I had brought home the two leftover slices of my LMP back from my mother's house. Sure, I've got more lemons, but they are earmarked for ice cream. Lemon and Speculaas ice cream. really, I should stop my pointless anti-dishes strike, clean up the kitchen, and go make that now. That would satisfy my need (it's not quite a craving) for swett lemony things. And seriously, even though all the dishes were dirtied by me cooking for everyone else in the house, no one appears to have noticed the piles growing, so I'll end up having to do them myself anyway. *sigh*

Meh. Be on the look out for that ice cream soon...