Sesame Chicken with Snap Peas and Jasmine Rice

It's no big secret that one of my biggest weaknesses is Chinese food. Any Chinese food. I am not picky when it comes to that. I could eat it every day for every meal and (probably - never say never!) not tire of it. The combinations, the flavors, the tastes...

Let's just say that I am just short of drinking soy sauce straight from the bottle and leave it at that, shall we?

Not to mention that stir fry is a fast, easy and inexpensive meal. Yeah, that always helps. Especially if you're me. Which you are not. And you wouldn't want to be me, trust me. Especially if you don't like stir fry.

This is an easy peasy one that is a snap (pun intended, thank you) to make and tastes out of this world.

I like to mix the marinade in a ziplock for less cleaning later.

Dice up your chicken.

Bathe it in soy saucy goodness...

Mix up the sauce.

Plate it up and go to town.

Sesame Chicken with Snap Peas and Jasmine Rice

serves 4

5 tbsp soy sauce
4 tsp dark sesame oil
2 tsp honey
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
6 tsp oil
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp grated or finely minced ginger
3 cloves minced garlic
1-1/4 cup chicken broth
3 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp chili paste (more if you like additional heat)
4 cups steamed snap peas
4 cups cooked jasmine rice
2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Whisk 3 tbsp soy sauce with 2 tsp sesame oil and honey. Add chicken and marinate 30 minutes or longer.

Heat 4 tsp oil on wok or skillet over medium high heat. Cook chicken until browned, 3-5 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate and wipe wok or skillet clean.

Heat remaining 2 tsp oil over medium high heat. Add scallions, ginger and garlic; stir fry about 1 minute. Whisk together the chicken broth, sugar, cornstarch, vinegar, chili paste and remaining 2 tbsp soy sauce. Add mixture to skillet; stir and cook until thickened, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in the remaining sesame oil.

Return chicken to pan, stir to coat and heat through.

Serve chicken with steamed snap peas and jasmine rice. Top with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds.

Chinese Beef Noodle Soup

Florida really doesn't get what you would call a winter. No snow, of course, which is a major bummer if you like that sort of thing (which I do). In the rare occasions where the thermometer dips below 50 around here, my Mom loves to make her Crockpot Vegetable Soup. I love it. I will try to remember to post the next time she makes it.

I am not big on a lot of soups, but I do have some favorites. I do tend to steer away from soups with noodles in them, but with me, that's just a texture thing.

The Chinese Beef Noodle soup was a big hit.  Even you aren't a 'soup' kind of person, this is an easy and comfort food alternative. And you may even rethink your interest in soup...

Chinese Beef Noodle Soup

serves 4-6

1-1/2 pounds of beef stir fry or fajita strips
28 ounces of low sodium beef broth
2 cups water
2 red bell peppers, cut into thin strips
1 small can of whole water chestnuts, drained
1 bunch scallions, cut into 1 inch pieces
4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp fresh minced ginger
1 tsp chili paste with garlic
6 ounces dried Chinese noodles
Dark sesame oil for drizzling

In dutch oven, heat 2 tsp oil over medium high heat. Quickly sear the beef until just browned. Add beef broth, water, peppers, water chestnuts, scallions, soy sauce, pepper, ginger, and chili paste. Stir to combine. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce to a high simmer and cook one hour.

Turn off the burner. Stir in the dried noodles (break if needed). Cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir to combine everything and separate noodles.  Ladle into bowls and drizzle each bowl with some dark sesame oil. 

You could also make this in a slow cooker - just dump as you would above into your slow cooker after browning the beef and set on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Norwegian Epic - Food, Fantasy and Frustration - Day Two

Day two finds us at sea. All day. Breakfast in the Manhattan Room, anyone?

My morning Cuppa...

My usual standard breakfast on any cruise...bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers

Mini pancake stack with bacon

Buttermilk waffle with syrup and warm banana compote

We pretty much walked around the ship exploring most of the day.  There are 19 decks in all on the Epic. Decks 1 through 4 are off limits to passengers, so I'm guessing that's where all the crew resides, storage, engines, etc. All the action is on Decks 5, 6, 7, 14, and 15-19. Decks 8-14, 16 and 17 have the staterooms.  If you're rich enough to book a Deluxe Owner's Suite, 2-Bedroom Villa or a Courtyard Penthouse on deck 16 or 17, you get exclusive access to the Villas Courtyard, the private Concierge Lounge and a private restaurant and bar. Ooh La La! Fancy-schmancy sounding, ain't it?? Needless to say, we didn't see any of that stuff!

Deck 5 consists of business meeting rooms (Boring! Who has business meetings on vacation? Really?), the photo gallery (pick up and pay $10 each for all those professionally awkward photos, people!), Internet Cafe, the Epic Theater (for Blue Man Group, Legends, Nickelodeon Slime Time Live), Le Bistro French restaurant, Taste restaurant, the Atrium Bar (coffee bar!), art gallery and Epic Theater bar.

Click Photo Gallery

Entrance to the Epic Theater

Le Bistro entrance

Taste entrance

Looking down on Taste dining room

Internet Cafe

Art Gallery

Atrium Bar

Atrium Bar with view of the two story movie screen

I decided to have a pre-lunch cocktail in the Cascades Bar on deck six. This was a great decision, I think...

Pear Pleasure:  Grey Goose LaPoire, Limoncello, Apple Juice, splash of soda and fresh pear garnish

We decided to have lunch in the Irish pub on deck 6, O'Sheehan's.  This was one of the 'freebie' dining areas.

Chicken Pot Pie

Fried Mozzarella Sticks (loved the presentation on these!)

Fish n' Chips (and in case you were wondering, as I was, the green stuff was Mushy Peas...)

The ever popular standard:  Buffalo Wings! Someone (including me) was bound to order them at one point...

 Corned Beef on Rye with Fries

The fare was fair; it was your standard bar/pub food. Not good enough to write home about.  I ate the wings and corned beef.  My wings were mushy, almost like overcooked, but had a powdery texture to them. Would that be 'beyond overcooked' then?  I only ate two of them after writing the first one off as a fluke, then figuring if the second one tasted exactly the same that there was something a bit...er, wrong.  Papa Bear had the wings, too - and he said his tasted fine. The sandwich was okay with the portion being really half of a normal-sized sandwich.

We ate at the bar table right in front of the bowling alley in O'Sheehan's.  Afterwards, Granma took the girls bowling whilst my main squeeze and I tried out another martini back at the Cascades Bar.

The alley directly in front of us

...and if we looked to the right...

The Coco Cabanatini: Bacardi Coco, Creme de Banana, Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps and fresh cream served with a coconut rim and cinnamon sprinkles. This was to die for...

All of this nefarious activity just plum wore out three quarters of our crew, so we all went  back to the stateroom to chill and refresh...

Papa Bear's idea of a reboot...

..and my idea of a reboot. I win!

Which, in retrospect was probably not the best idea I had all day, because those mushy, powdery wings were beginning to do a helluva number on my stomach...

When everyone (but Little Lawyer and myself) had woken from their catnaps, we explored deck 6 some more.  This deck has my beloved Cascades Bar, Fat Cats Jazz and Blues Club, Headliners Comedy Club, O'Sheehan's Pub, Shanghai's Chinese restaurant and Noodle Bar, the Spiegel Tent, the Manhattan Room restaurant and the Epic Casino.

Cascades Bar

Fat Cats entrance

Headliners Comedy Club

O'Sheehan's

Shanghai's

Spiegel Tent entrance (to the left)

Manhattan Room entrance

Casino

Granma playin' the slots

More casino fun

We had reserved a table at Shanghai's that evening for dinner. I wanted to be stoked for this, but those wings had given me the stomach cramps from hell - I could not stay vertical long enough to eat after I ordered.

Waiting for dinner at Shanghai's

Rice crackers with a bevy of dipping sauces: wasabi, chili and hot mustard

Harvest Spring Rolls with Sweet Chili Sauce

Salt and Pepper Calamari with Wasabi Mayo

Drum Roasted Hoisin Barbecue Pork Spare Ribs

Hot-n-Sour Soup

Cantonese Scallops with Snow Peas, Sweet Peppers and Garlic

Beef Broccoli with Oyster Sauce

Shrimp Fried Rice

Malay Lamb Curry

  
Shortly after the main course arrived and I took one or two bites, I had to leave and go back to the stateroom and lay down. We had reservations to see the Blue Man Group after dinner, but there was no way I could have sat through it.  Granma had them bump the reservation to the next night because they didn't want to go without me (even though I said they could) Awww, they really do love me!

I spent the rest of that evening in bed - from about 7pm til I woke up the next morning at 7am. The bathroom and I had a long discussion (maybe even an argument...but I'm not sure exactly which one of us actually won)
and I felt much better the next day. The rest of the crew hung out, went for ice cream or ordered room service and just chilled.