Chef Jorge Serves up a Quick Fix to Your Hectic Schedule

Jordan Lander/ Erie Reader

With the craziness of life, sometimes a homemade meal just seems impossible, and between everything going on in life, sometimes a simple can of soup seems sufficient. Yes, I, too, am guilty of thinking it. 

This week I have been busy trying to spend time with my friend before she goes to study abroad, and still having to finish homework, having to do a cake tasting, and having to go to work, I realized today's recipe should be a quick home-cooked meal. As I said in my bio, I want to share a wide range of recipes-- from a quick meal to a dinner for a special occasion.

Being that food is a staple in our lives, whether it be from ordering out, driving thru for fast food, or stopping to make a home-cooked meal, we have to eat to live, what I want to do is help make meals an experience that you can enjoy with friends and family.

Today's recipe is one of those famous 15-minute meals. I use to make a Chicken Stir Fry when I worked at a home for people with intellectual disabilities. At that time, I was cooking this meal to feed eight to 10 adults for dinner. What I loved is that it is a quick, veggie-full meal that is simply delicious and cheaper than ordering out.

In this recipe, I am using frozen stir-fry vegetables. I find that using the frozen veggies for this meal is a quick short cut, saving us even more time.

People sometimes tend to think that frozen vegetables are not as healthy as fresh veggies. But unless you are buying organic local vegetables, buying frozen is almost better than buying fresh produce from the grocery stores when it is out of season-- the reason being that frozen produce gets more time to ripen on the vines, giving it more time to reach its peak in nutritional value. The riper produce is before being picked, the healthier it will be because the enzymes, vitamins, and minerals found in it have more time to develop.

For my Chicken Stir Fry, I made white rice separately to go with it, but you can use Lo Mien Noodles if you prefer. This recipe is not written in stone-- it is just a guide to inspire you to your own creation.

So let us start with our homemade Chicken Stir Fry:

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs.    Raw Chicken Breast

1 Bag   Frozen Stir Fry Vegetables

1cube   Chicken Bouillon

2 C      Soy Sauce

¼C      Sugar

¼C      Honey

1Tbs    Fresh Garlic (Chopped)

1Tbs    Garlic Powder

1Tbs    Crushed Red Pepper

2Tbs    Minced Dried Onion

1 tsp    White Pepper

1C       Cashews

RECIPE

Let us start by heating up our skillet with a little bit of oil; while we are doing this, we can start cutting up our chicken breast (the thinner we cut the chicken the faster it will it cook).

Once our oil is hot, add in our sliced chicken and garlic. What we are doing here is cooking off our chicken and lightly browning it.

As we are browning the chicken, we will add one cup of the soy sauce, the chicken bouillon, white pepper, and sugar (we are not adding salt to this recipe because there is enough salt in soy sauce).

Once our chicken is cooked through, we add our frozen veggies; at this point, we add the rest of our dried seasonings.

Once the water from the veggies is released, we will add the remaining part of our soy sauce and the honey, which will help thicken our sauce.

Let this simmer for another two minutes and then add our cashews (waiting until the end to add the cashews will help add texture to our stir fry)

Serve our stir fry hot off the stove with a white rice. Buen Provecho, my friends!