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October 21, 2011

Chicken Stir Fry... And Top Ramen

Hello everyone, I'm back! I've been on a hiatus for the past 2 weeks, working on a big paper and making Halloween cakes for work. Ugh - I've already talked too much about work and school in this post. Food! Just because I've been super busy, doesn't mean I haven't been cooking, actually I have a whole list of things I need to blog. Today's post comes from one of those nights where you know you have to eat so if you're going to cook, you might as well put in some good effort - but not too much of course.

My chicken stir fry, that I sometimes replace with beef, is one of my favorite go-to meals because you can't really mess it up. As I'm sure you know, you can add whatever veggies you have with whatever proteins you have and you're going to end up with a pretty rockin' meal. The best part? There's only 5 ingredients in mine.

What You'll Need:
2 chicken breasts
2 zucchini 
1 onion
6 small mushrooms
1 packet of Ramen noodles (go with me on this)

Start by cutting your chicken breasts into 2 inch bite-size pieces. Put a little olive oil in hot skillet and add the chicken. I only added a little seasoning (Season All and garlic powder) to my chicken because I had some great veggies that I wanted to come through.

While the chicken is cooking, cut your zucchini, onions and mushrooms in rather large pieces. There's about a zillion different types of veggies you could use but my personal goal was to not go to the grocery store for this one meal and use only what I had at home. I think at the time, these were the only 3 types I had in my whole apartment.

When the chicken is done, put it aside. You're going to add to the skillet again at the end so you don't have to keep it warm. 

Put your zucchini in the hot skillet with a little more olive oil. When they soften up a bit, but they're not fully cooked, add the onions.

When the onions start to become translucent add your mushrooms. These need the least amount of time to cook. I've found that when mushrooms are with other veggies that intensify in flavor as they're cooked (like onions and zucchini), mushrooms don't stand out. They definitely taste more like mushrooms if there's still a little bite to them. Honestly, at this point I could have eaten the veggies just like this!

Now comes my little secret ingredient. I like some pasta or rice with my stir fries but I usually use a thin spaghetti noodle. The problem was that I only had enough spaghetti for a spaghetti dinner (which is another go-to for us) I didn't want to "waste" it on this....especially when I had Top Ramen in the pantry. It's the easiest cheat pasta to go to. You put it in a bowl, cover it with water, and put it in the microwave for two minutes (without the seasoning).

Add the cooked chicken back to the veggies 

Then add all of the noodles to the skillet and use a fork to break them up. I wouldn't recommend using the seasoning packets for any flavoring because I'm not really sure what's in it and I recommend just staying away... 
I meant it when I said I didn't plan on buying anything extra for this meal - if you know me, you know I'm serious about my personal food challenges.

So this is what I ended up with. The veggies play just as much of a part in the meal as the chicken and noodles. This might be my girl math, but this has to be pretty healthy if there's that many vegetables in it. Right? (Just tell me yes...) Overall this is super simple to make and packed full of natural flavor. Enjoy!

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