Sweet and Sour Chicken

It has taken me awhile to get this recipe up here. Everytime I make it for dinner I forget to take pictures of some part of the process. I finally have them all.

The first year and a half I was married my husband told me atleast a few times a month to "Get Jen's sweet and sour chicken recipe". My husband first year of school he lived in the basement of his friends house and his friends wife was Jen. I guess she made this all the time and he loved it. Annoyed, I finally asked her for the recipe (along with several other of my favs she makes). I am so glad that I got it. I make it all the time.



With one boneless skinless breast for each person, dip each breast in a beaten egg, then in cornstarch.


Be sure to fully cover each breast with corn starch.


Pan fry the chicken breast in a thin layer of Oil ( I use extra virgin olive oil) over medium heat. You can use as much or as little oil as you want. I have fried the chicken with just Pam. It fries alright, but the oil adds a little more moisture for the crispy layer. But Pam does work.



Let each side lightly brown. Keep an eye on it so they don't burn. You can keep flipping the breasts until they are cooked through or you can just let them brown.


While the chicken is cooking in a large sauce pan mix together:
2 cups of white sugar
2/3 cups of vinegar
1 cup of water
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tbsp Soya sauce
2 tsp garlic salt
2 tbsp water mixed with 2tsp chicken broth powder



Bring all ingredients to a boil over high heat. Let it boil while the chicken cooks. I usually let it boil for about 10 minutes. Then thicken it with corn starch.


Place in a oven safe dish. Spoon the Sauce over the breast a few times. Bake covered at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

You can prepare all the above steps that morning or the night before and then Bake before serving. But your cook time increases to 1 hour.

Before serving spoon the sauce over the breasts a few times. Serve with rice.

I don't even feel that the pictures do this recipe justice. The crispy outter layer is so good and the sauce is so sweet and is fantastic with Rice.

Served with a Salad or some steamed veggies, this is the perfect dinner.

Spring Fling Wreath

I love making wreaths. I always see flowers and think "I could make a nice wreath with those". I chose to stick to seasonal wreaths and to put them on my front door. Just gives the house a little festive flare. Whatever the season.

Because of our move and lack of a Michaels craft store in my new 'village'. I didn't get this wreath done intime for Easter like I wanted to. But it will be ready and waiting to go on the front door next Easter.

Start with your basic Grapevine wreath. Any size you want. They have different shapes and sizes, so just depends on what you feel like.

I chose these spring flowers because I wanted a spring wreath, but you can use any kind of flower you want. I have also made a "Festive Fall Wreath", so I used fall colored flowers for that one. I used 12 of these stems. 4 pinks, 4 whites, and 4 greens. How many you need will depend on the flowers and how big your wreath is. I originally only bought 9, then got part way finished and had to have my mom buy more and mail them to me.


From each stem you will be able to detach flowers or bunches.

Using a hot glue gun, apply glue to the base of the flowers and pressed into the desired spot on your wreath. Also I always put something underneath my wreath, just incase some glue drops down. I don't want to have to pick glue off my new table.


Arange the flowers anyways you want in the using the glue to keep them in place. Keep going allt he way around the wreath making sure not to leave any bare spots. When you are done, hold the wreath up and look to see if there are any spots that you would like filled in.

You can add leaves around it if you would like. For now I have chosen not too, but I may change my mind later. I love how full it looks.

The flower colors are so spring and so fresh.

Usually I put them on my front door, but I do think that it looks really cute at my front entrance with my Easter decor that I haven't put away yet.

Here is a photo of another wreath that I made. This is the Festive Fall Wreath. Like I mentioned above, I used fall flowers and I also used 'picks'. Those are the pinecones and fruit that you can see in with all the flowers. This fall wreath is by far my favorite wreath. I included it to show that you can make all kinds of wreaths for any season or any color.

Cute Clips

It has been long over a month since I have posted. We moved and I haven't really had a chance to do much else than pack and unpack. But we are here in our new house and I have already started to do stuff.

I figured it was about time that I posted a crafty idea.

I have seen clips like this at craft shows and in stores and I figured I could make my own. My sister-in-law makes them aswell. Her daughter has a bug clip to match every outfit she wears.

I will start with the most basic clip. It is really basic, but looks so cute.

Start with these metal Alligator clips. You can get them in beauty supply stores. I got mine off ebay.

Any color of ribbon you want. You can match any color to any outfit.

I think these little bows look so cute in a little girls hair. They can be worn as a barrette or they can be put over top of pig tails. Anyway you want, they are simple and cute.

Use a hot glue gun and glue the ribbon around the clip. You can glue ribbon on the bottom if you want or leave it open and just glue to the base, just past the pinchers or spring. I find that when there is no ribbon on the bottom, they hold better in the hair. Also, you can glue the ribbon tight against the clip in the pinchers or you can pull it over them. You'll see the difference in the next clip I cover with yellow ribbon.

Make a simple Bow. Measure your ribbon to twice as long as the clip and fold ends into the center and glue. Then wrap a small piece around the center and glue it.

Glue the bow to the covered clip and you are done. Easy to make, but so cute when worn.

The next clip is a little ladybug.

Start by covering the clip with ribbon. You can see the difference in the end of the clip from the last one I showed you. Instead of following the clip around the end, this one just goes from one pincher to the other. I actually prefer this look more.

Make two loops. Make one smaller than the other. It has to fit inside the larger loop. Glue the end at a 90 degree angle with the other end. so that the front is a point. You don't have to make these two loops the same color. It is also cute if you do different colors.

Cut a small piece of the edge off a small piece of ribbon. Using a match or a lighter burn the cut side (where it would fray). Don't let it turn black and burn, but you will notice that your edge will start to curl inwards. This is what you want. Do two pieces of this. These are the anteni.

Glue your two loops together and glue the anteni onto the top of the loops. Take and small piece of ribbon and wrap it around the tip of the ladybug. It makes the 'head' but also covers up where your anteni have been glued.

Then glue the bug to the clip. Theses can be worn alone in the hair or they can be worn on a head band.

Dragon Fly

Again, start by glueing ribbon around the clip

Take two pieces of ribbon. One slightly shorter than the other. Bring the ends into the center and glue to the clip. The ends are in the middle underneath and can't be seen

Make two anteni the same as with the lady bug and glue to the clip and then take a piece of ribbon, fold each end in 1/4 inch and glue over top of wings and anteni.

These are so cute. Again these can be worn in the hair or clipped onto a stretchy head band. My little girl has lots of hair and can wear clips like this, but when she was younger I would clip them to a stretchy head band and wear them like that.

You can choose any color combination you want. There are so many ribbon colors to choose from, you really could make a clip for every outfit!

Licorice Caramels

My mom used to make these for us and it didn't take long for us to eat them all. This is her recipe and one that I am glad that I have. I made these for the first time myself this Christmas and they were such a hit I have made them several times since. I have tried a few different things with this recipe, but always go back to the original.

Even people who don't like black licorice LOVE these caramels.

It is important that you have a candy temometer. The first time I made these I didn't have one and thought that 'firm ball stage' meant that it would start to look like a firm ball. Wrong.

In a large heavy sauce pan add:

2 cups white sugar

1 -11oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 cups light corn syrup

1 cup butter (I usually use 1/2 marg - 1/2 butter)

1/4 tsp salt

Cook and stir over medium heat. Make sure that you scrape the bottom of the pot because it will start to burn.



Heat until you get to what is called firm ball stage. (**Please see note at bottom of post for temp details). As I metioned above the tempurature is important. If it doesn't get to the right temp it will be too soft and won't really hold its shape and will start to stick to the wax paper you wrap them in. But if it gets too hot they will be too hard and will eventually become rock candy. Which may not be bad if you wanted to make hard candy or suckers.

Remove from heat and stir in ;

3/4 tsp Oil of Anise (you can get this at a health food store)

3/4 tsp black food paste (you can get this at a craft store - Michaels has it)

Pour into a buttered 8 or 9 inch pan. You should butter your pan before you start cooking. And really butter it. Make a thick layer of butter. Pam won't work.

Cool throughly. I usually leave it overnight.

Turn out pan and cut or cut into strips while in pan.

Cut into 1 inch pieces and wrap in wax paper.

I also usually get hte wax paper ready before. I cut a piece about 6 inches and then cut that into 3 peices.

I did mention that I have tried different variations of the recipe. The basic recipe is the same I just changed the flavoring. At the health store you can get several other flavors. So far I have tried peppermint, maple, coconut, and root beer. All were good. I would add closer to 1 tsp of maple flavor.

Also you can't use extracts. It has to be the oil flavors. One more thing, is that other food paste colors don't work either. They end up black anyways.

This time I tried maple.

TEMPURATURE NOTE

** Firm ball stage is 244-248 degrees F.

But this temp will changed based on the altitude of where you live. You will need to adjust your candy tempuratures based on what your boiling point is.

Boiling point is 212 degrees. To determine your boiling point, bring a pot of water to a rolling boil for 10 minutes. Stick in your candy thermometer and let the temp register and determine what the water temp is. Then depending on where it is in comparison to 212 degrees adjust your candy temp.

For example. When I first started making the candy I lived on a lower elevation and my candy temp was 244. The candy always turned out perfect at this temp. But then I moved to the mountains and the altitude changed and therefore so did my boiling point. I did the boiling point test and got a temp of 205 degrees. So I adjusted the candy temp down to 237 degrees and the candy turns out great. If I were to let it go to 244, it would be rock solid. (even 240 is a little too firm)

So before cooking your candy, figure out your boiling point and then adjust your candy temp accordingly.

Don't be discouraged if it takes a few trys to get it right. This candy is so yummy it is worth the effort.

Mango Salsa

I love this Salsa. It has such a fresh taste to it. And because it is fruits and veggies you don't feel that guilty for eating alot of it.

The orignal recipe called for just two mangos, but I always use 3, just because I love mangos.

Chop 3 mangos.

Chop it as fine as you can, because the smaller the pieces the better it is.

You can also use peaches or fresh pinnapple.

Chop 1/2 Red Pepper

Add in 2 tbsp Red Onion, finely chopped

Add 2 tbsp Cilantro, finely chopped. I also usually add way more than this, just because I love cilantro

add

3 tsp fresh lime juice

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

Mix it all together

Serve with Tortilla chips.

It is so colorful and vibrant. And so good!

It is also really good served over a ginger glazed salmon fillet.