Crispy White Meat Karaage Chicken

The first time I had karaage chicken, it was at a local Japanese restaurant and it reminded me a lot of Chinese brandy fried chicken only better because they were bite sized and delicately crispy. Karaage chicken is traditionally made with chicken thigh meat, but I prefer chicken breasts because of texture. Yes, this is a fried chicken recipe, I'm all about balance ;P, I'd typically have this with steamed broccoli or a salad. I knew this recipe was a big hit when my god-sister's son kept asking for it after I made this for my son's birthday party!

I simplified the recipe by using ground ginger and garlic powder in lieu of fresh. This saves a ton of time and makes this recipe a little more pantry staple friendly. You can also marinate the chicken in bulk and portion out in ziplock bags and freeze until ready to use!

Marinate in bulk for easy weeknight meals!

Crispy White Meat Karaage Chicken
Adapted from Food.com
Makes 4 servings (4 oz. per serving)
Nutritional Value per serving- Calories: 321 Fat: 17g Protein: 21g Sodium: 766mg Sugar: 1g Carbs: 22g

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken breasts cut into bite size
1/8 Tsp. Ground Ginger
1/2 Tsp. Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp. Sake (Japanese Rice Wine)
3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/8 Tsp. Ground Black Pepper
1 Cup Potato Starch
Vegetable Oil (for frying)

Directions:
To make marinade, combine ground ginger, garlic powder, soy sauce and sake in a large bowl. Whisk until well blended. Add chicken to the marinade and mix so that the chicken is well coated. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

In a heavy bottom skillet or a wok, heat vegetable oil to 350 degrees F**. While the oil is heating, dust the chicken with potato starch.*** When oil is ready, fry the chicken in the oil until golden. For extra crispiness, lift the chicken from the oil with a steel strainer and return to hot oil.

**If you don't have a thermometer, you can use an un-lacquered wooden/bamboo chopstick to test if your oil is hot enough. After heating up your oil for a few minutes, touch the bottom of the pan with the chopstick, if little bubbles start rolling up, the oil is ready to fry!

***Alternatively you can dust the chicken with corn starch, I've read that potato starch is what gives the karaage chicken it's light crispiness; corn starch would yield a more dense crunch.

Foodspiration:

Karaage Chicken Sliders!

With Taylor Farm's Asian Chopped Coleslaw.

Shrimp Salad Roll with Tarragon and Chives

This is such an easy and fast recipe that's perfect for the summer. A good seafood roll is hard to come by here in Sacramento. Opting to make it at home, you can add more veggies, control the salt, and use lower calorie ingredients too! Alternatively, the shrimp salad can be enjoyed on a bed of lettuce!

When I went on the hunt for lobster roll and shrimp roll recipes they were typically served on a delicious looking roll. Come to find it was a New England Style Hot Dog Bun. that are hard to find in California. Lucky for me, my cousin-in-law Truc got me a pack of NE Style Buns from her east coast visit! The New England Style Hot Dog Bun is slightly sweet and more pliable than a regular hot dog bun. The way they're baked and cut make them ideal for buttering and toasting! I'm truly thankful for getting to try these buns before attempting to make my own! :P

This recipe can be made ahead and can keep for up to 2-days in the refrigerator. If making the same day, it's ideal to make it a few hours ahead of time to let the shrimp salad chill and let the herbs' flavors develop. The recipe below is approximately half the FineCooking.com's recipe, I also substituted the fresh herbs with dried herbs to make the recipe a little more pantry ingredients friendly.

Shrimp Salad Roll with Tarragon and Chives
Adapted from FineCooking.com
Makes 6 servings
Nutritional Value per serving- Calories: 244 Fat: 10g Protein: 12g Sodium: 509mg Sugar: 3g Carbs: 22g
Nutritional Value per serving (Shrimp Salad Only)- Calories: 69 Fat: 2g Protein: 6g Sodium: 349mg Sugar: 0g Carbs: 2g

Ingredients:
1 lb large shrimp (31 to 40 per lb.)
1/2 cup finely chopped celery with leaves
1/4 cup mayonnaise (I used Kraft Olive Oil Mayo)
2 Tbsp. dried chives
2 Tsp. dried tarragon
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice; more to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste
6 hot dog rolls, preferably New England-style split top rolls
3-4 Tbsp Ghee or melted butter (optional)

Directions:
In a large pot, bring well-salted water to boil over high heat. Add the shrimp and let cook until pink, about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally (the water does not need to return to a boil). Drain in a colander and run under cold water to stop the cooking process. Peel the shrimp, de-vein (if necessary), and cut into small pieces.

In a large bowl, combine celery, mayonnaise, chives, tarragon, and lemon juice. Stir ingredients until well mixed and add shrimp. Add salt, pepper and more lemon juice to taste.

Heat a pan or skillet on medium heat. Lightly brush each side of hot dog buns with ghee or melted butter. Once the pan is hot, place the bun with one of the buttered sides down on the pan. Grill until lightly-browned and flip over and grill the other side is lightly browned. Spoon the shrimp salad into the rolls and serve. Enjoy!

Variations: Substitute the cooked shrimp with cooked lobster to make a lobster roll!

Sometimes life just stops you...

I accidentally overslept this morning and didn't get my workout in, but I let it be. I'm still toying with yogurt making so I thought I'd start a batch with the microwave method and let the milk cool down as I got ready for work. After all, my doctor told me to take it a little easier on the exercise.

My car broke down today, fortunately it was at my parents' driveway as I was dropping off my son. The tow truck came late, but it was ok, I was in the comfort of my parents' home and my cousin was there to workout so I got to chat with her for a bit. I decided to take the whole day off since I didn't have any deadlines (yay for a three day mother's day weekend!). I'm excited that my cousins have the day off too and we're going to go have lunch and work out together! So I guess it all worked out in the end! :)

I took care of some paperwork that I've been meaning to finish and because I was home I was able to catch a call for my son's future grade school for an orientation! It's funny how things workout sometimes.

The only potential bad part of the day is getting the repair bill for the car :(

Baked Apples with Oat Crumbles

I love me some apple cobbler, but cobblers generally have a ton of sugar and with each recipe I make more cobbler than I can resist! When I saw this recipe on skinnytaste.com I was so excited! I followed the recipe to a "t" the first time and it was good, the only downfall was that any crumbles that didn't stay on the apple ended up being a burnt mess on my baking sheet (the wasted crumbles was just such a tragedy!) ! -_-. By slicing the apples and placing them in a ramekin I was able to maximize the crumbles and cut the baking time by a little. This is budget friendly and can be easily scaled up for larger families. And also because this dessert is so small and isn't extremely temperature sensitive, you can bake them in your toaster oven! HUZZAH! 

In the future, I'm going to make the crumble mixture sans butter in bulk and store in an airtight container and add just mix 1 Tbsp of butter per 4 Tbsp of crumble mixture. I've also substituted the butter with coconut oil the second time around and it was just as delicious!

Baked Apples with Oat Crumbles
Adapted from Skinnytaste
Makes 2 servings
Nutritional Value per serving - Calories:152 Fiber:3g Protein: 1g Sodium: 0mg Sugar: 13g Carbs: 20g

1 large apple

1 Tbsp butter, melted 

1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp quick oats
pinch of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, slice apples (I used an apple slicer and then sliced those slices in halves). Arrange apple slices into a ramekin.

In a small bowl combine butter, brown sugar, flour, oats and cinnamon. Spoon on top of the sliced apples and bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until apples are tender.

Here's a picture of the Apple Slicer, the price is a little steep but it's super convenient to slice apples for baking or even just to slice apples in seconds for a healthy snack!

OXO Grips Apple Slicer/Corer (photo courtesy of Amazon.com)

Healthy Curried Chicken Salad

Thanks to my workout buddy, I've been obsessed with Shredded Crockpot chicken and finding creative yet easy ways to use it. The chicken is delicious by itself but variety is the spice of life right?! :P

For my husband's 40th birthday we went to Maui. One of my friends recommended going to Cafe O' Lei, I had just hit my first weight-loss goal and wanted to eat healthy when I could. I ordered a chicken curry salad and it was SOOO delicious! While I'm sure that the Cafe O' Lei salad had lots of fatty goodness and the recipe below is not a copycat or similar, it is what inspired me to even look up curry chicken salad recipes. I found a lot of great recipes, a lot of them called for grapes or apples. One of my goals as a home-cook is to utilize pantry staples and make-ahead friendly ingredients so I used golden raisins instead of fresh grapes. Another reason for using golden raisins was partly inspired by Naturebox's Taj Mahal trail-mix. It was such a delight to bite into the sweet raisin to balance the savoriness of the curry flavor.  My cousin was very apprehensive about raisins and curry combination but I made a believer out of her!

Curried Chicken Salad
Adapted from The Art of Doing Stuff
Makes approximately four 3/4 cup servings
Nutritional Value per serving - Calories: 184 Fiber:0g Protein: 1g Sodium: 100mg Sugar: 0g

12 oz Shredded Crockpot chicken

6 oz. Plain Greek Yogurt

1 teaspoon Curry Powder
1 dash Cayenne Pepper (optional)
3 Celery Stalk - chopped
1 medium Red Onion - chopped
1/4 cup Golden Raisins
1/4 cup Pecans - chopped
Salt & Pepper to taste

In a medium bowl combine Greek yogurt, curry powder, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Mix well. Add chicken, celery, red onion, raisins and pecans and stir until ingredients are evenly coated with the curry mixture. Refrigerate for at least an hour to let the flavors "mature" and serve! I love having the salad with pitas, sandwich wraps (I love flatout bread), lettuce wraps or even by itself!

Enjoy! :)

Turkey Meatballs

This is a re-post from my Reni-women blog because my blog is looking pretty bare. My first post! *Squeals*

The Grocery Outlet typically sells Jennie-O ground turkey meat for a steal so I bought it without really knowing what to make. Then I had the bright idea of making meatballs with them! I like making them in big batches and freezing some so that my family can have a quick, delicious, and healthy meal option on weeknights. I love using these turkey meatball for spaghetti or meatball subs. While club stores sells frozen chicken meatballs which are a decent option for meals too, isn't it nice to know what exactly is in the food you're serving? :)

Turkey Meatballs
Makes about 50 meatballs.
Nutritional Value per meatball - Calories: 39 Fiber:0g Protein: 1g Sodium: 100mg Sugar: 0g

1 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs (alternate: Panko breadcrumbs and Italian Seasoning)

1/4 cup whole milk (I tried unsweetened almond milk and the meatballs still turned out well!)

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon onion powder

2.5 pounds ground turkey meat

Extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients. Using hands, mix all the ingredients until thoroughly combined.

Using a cookie scoop or tablespoons, form the meat mixture into balls (makes approximately 50 meatballs). Grease or use a non-stick cooking spray on a heavy baking sheet or casserole dish. Place the meatballs on the baking sheet or casserole dish about 1" apart. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until cooked through, 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Freezing leftovers: Let meatballs cool to room temperature. Store in airtight container and freeze. To reheat, preheat oven to 350 degrees F, bake for 15-20 minutes.

My favorite "low cal" way to eat the meatballs is with "squash pasta". I use a mandolin or veggie spiral slicer to julienne Italian Squash, sauté in olive oil, salt and pepper. Enjoy!