Orange Chicken and Rice

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to a girls movie night with my mom, sister and young niece. We watched foreign TV shows and themed a dinner around them. The recipe came from a healthy eating cookbook that my mom owns. Hopefully, at least once or twice a month, we can have a get together and cook new meals. This is a great way to expand your menu because different tastes are being brought together. I would never have cooked this meal if I came across the recipe, but now that I've tried it, I will definitely make it again. By the way, until I started a blog I never noticed this, but the lighting in my mom's kitchen is wonderful! Trying to find good lighting in my house is a chore, but in her kitchen, everywhere I turned there was enough light for a perfect picture. Food photo heaven! Would it be weird if I drove to her house everyday to photograph my meals? :)

Serve alone or over rice

Chop the veggies into bite size pieces

Orange Chicken
Servings Size = 4
Original Recipe by: Marlene Koch from Eat What You Love, p. 304

Sauce

• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/3 cup of light orange juice
• 1/4 cup Splenda or Sugar (original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of Splenda, but it's too sweet)
• 2 tablespoons of brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (original recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon)
• 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon of orange zest (not in original recipe)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons of water

Chicken

• 1 1/4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons of canola oil
• 1 small red pepper, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped

1. For the sauce, whisk together all of the ingredients except the cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Place the pan over medium-high heat and bring to a low simmer. In a small bowl, mix the water and cornstarch and then whisk into the sauce. The sauce should thicken and clear. Reduce heat to low and let simmer. *Note: if you are not a fan of sweet sauce then add less sugar and taste as you go.
2. In a large non-stick pan heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Toss the chicken pieces into the egg and then the flour to coat. Cook half of the chicken until done, move to a bowl, cook the other half and move to a bowl. *Note: frying the chicken didn't really create a traditional fried chicken. If you are not worried about the calories, go ahead and add more oil to the pan and fry normally. 
3. In the same pan, add the peppers and onions for 4 to 5 minutes until slightly softened. Add the chicken to the pan and then the orange sauce. Stir to coat and serve. We served ours on rice and sprinkled it with almond slices.

Ignoring the rice, almonds and our other slight changes, the original recipe has 290 calories, 18 grams of carbohydrates and 9 grams of fat.

I have linked to Cookbook Sundays!