Kung Pao Chicken!

Well, I haven't posted since May.

Sorry about that! I've been really busy! I have started student teaching and every day I come home exhausted with piles of homework to do (literally, I need to clean too...)!
So far, I've relied on tacos made once a week, eggs, and bowls for cereal for my dinner, but tonight, I decided to actually cook *GASP!* on a weekday! Shocking! Right?

Well, the only reason I even bothered going to the store on a weekday is because I'm out of toothpaste, and if I didn't get some on my way from school, I never I wouldn't get some until at least tomorrow...

I get distracted too easily...BACK TO DINNER!

But something in the store smelt delicious, and the moment I walked in the store, I knew I wanted some real/different food for dinner.

So, I got my toothpaste (oh, and zip lock bags, out of those too!) and started wandering the store. So many things looked delicious, but they would take too long. Then I came across the Sun Bird seasonings. I've made some before, and I decided I would try a new one. I saw Kung Pao chicken and I knew what would be for dinner.

The directions were easy enough, and, they are on the website! (Because, of course, I did not take pictures..)


This is what I did:
It would have been pretty quick if all of the chicken I eat did not come from a giant frozen 3 pound bag. After the chicken defrosted..

-I cut the chicken into small pieces and seasoned them with a little bit of salt and ginger powder, salt and pepper would obviously work :)
-Put some oil in a pan, started cooking the chicken
-While that was going on, I mixed the seasoning packet with 3 little packets of sugar, a tablespoon of soy sauce, and 3/4 cup of water & I cut up 4 green onions
-I guess I didn't really pay attention to the directions on the packet because then I added the green onions, and stirred them around in there for like 30 seconds
-Instead of peanuts, I bought water chestnuts so I could still have the crunch. I drained the liquid from the can and tossed them in there and let them be for about a minute.
-Then I added the seasoning mix, stirred it, and let it thicken for about a minute.

Then, I served it over brown rice!
*Oh! I forgot to mention at the beginning to put brown rice to start cooking. I use minute brand rice so it cooks in about 10 minutes instead of a hour..*

And it was DELICIOUS!

It took about 30 minutes to make total, but it was totally worth it for me, because I wanted real food. (Is it sad that my real food at this point in my life is inspired from a packet? Before, this semester, I used to cook ALL THE TIME! I promise! :) ) It could have been a lot faster if I had a pound and a half of cooked chicken laying around, then you could just use a tiny bit of oil for the green onions/water chestnuts/whatever else you decide to put in there. Then this would have been like a 5-10 minute meal :)

I invited my boyfriend over for dinner to celebrate the momentous occasion of me cooking in the middle of the week, he loved it too! :) I'd recommend these seasoning packets for anybody!


*Esp, busy college kids with stupid gluten allergies who can't order Chinese food when they crave it so they are forced to cook in the middle of the week...* :)

This is great because being gluten free, I tend to really miss Chinese food, so I am really looking forward to trying more of these seasoning packets.

Oh! I also looked on their website, and they have a whole list of these gluten free seasoning packets, if yall are interested.
http://williamsfoods.com/index.php?customernumber=92320939438&pr=Gluten_Free_Products

Hope this can help a busy mom, dad, kid, teenager, college kid, who ever! :)
Speaking of busy, I have homework to do...

Have a great day!

-Anita