Nap Time Cooking

I love a recipe that can be prepped during naptime.  If I can cook while the kids sleep, then we can play while they are awake, and everybody is happier.  Sweet and Sour Chicken is easy, tasty and popular with the kids.  The hands on part of this recipe can be completed in less than 30 minutes- 15 minutes of cooking and 15 minutes to quadruple sanitize the kitchen.  Yes, I know that's crazy, but I have a fear of raw meat.  Carnophobia?  I'll put up with it if my kids will eat without a fight.  While this isn't the healthiest meal (lots of sugar), it does contain nutritious, whole ingredients like organic chicken, brown rice and broccoli.  Okay, enough talking.  Here comes the recipe, but get ready, things are about to get weird.  


Sweet and Sour Chicken
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup canola oil

Cut boneless chicken breasts into chunks. Season with salt and pepper. Dip chicken in cornstarch and then in egg. Fry in a little oil until brown but not cooked through. Place in a single layer in a 9x13 glass dish. Mix sauce ingredients (below) together and pour over chicken.

Sauce:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup ketchup (Weird, right?  Don't say I didn't warn you.)
½ cup vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt

Bake for one hour at 325 degrees. Turn chicken every 15 minutes.  After 30 minutes, add 1 can of pineapple with a bit of the juice if the sauce seems to be cooking down too much.  


I served this with Alton Brown's baked brown rice, which was delicious.  However, it calls for cooking the rice at 375 degrees for one hour, so here's what I did: 
 4:00-4:30 Cooked chicken in the oven at 325 
4:30 Moved chicken to crockpot, set on high.  Put rice in the oven at 375.  Cook each for one hour.  
5:30 Microwave some frozen organic broccoli and it's dinner time!


Trust me, your kids will want to eat this meal!

Before

During (I love Blake's chubby fingers :)

After

Bonus: Dinner is done early, now you can head downtown and enjoy the beautiful Boise weather.  However, your kids probably won't have any fun. 

What a grumpy girl!

Stop at the market and get a tomato plant.  Tell your kids the fun is over and it's time to go home.  Now tell them to please stop crying, kicking and screaming so they can carefully hold your plant.  You've gotta earn your keep, kiddos.