Capsicum-Free Chicken Stir Fry

I concocted a new recipe this evening and it is ALL GONE!  As a side note: Neither of my children would touch this, but they are not fond of trying new foods.  And my hubby and I probably should not of ate it all, but oh it was so good!

Anyway, I switched doctors and yesterday afternoon I was talking with the physicians assistant that I now see.  She mentioned stir fry while we were talking and the wheels started turning in my head.  Hmmmm. . . . stir fry sounds good, how can I make it without peppers and capsicum laced products?

I did some internet research and concocted the below recipe.  Enjoy!!!

Capsicum-Free Chicken Stir Fry

Ingredients
4 teaspoons cornstarch
2/3 cup water
3 tablespoons soy sauce ( I used San-J Tamari Soy Sauce, reduced sodium)
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
3 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 container fresh sliced mushrooms
1/2 floret broccoli, cut into small chunks
1/4 head cauliflower, cut into small chunks
8 baby carrots, cut into short slivers
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 1/2 cups hot cooked wild rice (I used Rice Select Royal Blend Rice)

Directions
Make stir-fry sauce by whisking together first six ingredients in a bowl and set aside.  Prepare the chicken and vegetables as instructed in ingredient list.  Start cooking in the rice according to packaging instructions (takes 20 minutes, but great flavor).  Now to the actually cooking . . . . Cook chicken in a large skillet with about 2 tablespoons canola oil on medium-high heat about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add vegetables and stir-fry sauce, cover until stir-fry sauce comes to a boil stirring occasionally.  After sauce comes to a boil remove lid and stir occasionally until the sauce is thicken and the vegetables are to preference (crunchy or a touch softened).  Serve the stir-fry over the warm wild rice.

Nothing Says Fall Like . . .

. . . Acorn squash.

So to celebrate fall we are having apple stuffed acorn squash, peas, and ham steak for supper tonight.  Oh, we can't forget the chocolate chip banana bread (see recipe archive page above) for dessert.  Yummy!

Apple Stuffed Acorn Squash

1 large acorn squash
2 medium red apples, diced
1 handful pecans
2 large spoonfuls of brown sugar (sorry did not measure)
1/4 cup melted stick butter

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Clean the outside of the squash.  Carefully cut the squash in half length-wise.  Scoop out the seeds and strings, discard.  Place the two squash halves cut side up in a 9x13 baking dish with about 1/4 inch of water in the dish.  Bake for 30 minutes.  

While squash is cooking prepare apple stuffing in a bowl.  At the 30 minute mark pull the squash out of the oven and fill with the delicious stuffing.  Pop it back into the oven for another 30 minutes or until tender.  Pull it out of the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes to cool.  Enjoy!!!! 

Additional Notes:
To hurry the acorn squash along in the cook process (before you bake in the oven).  You can cook both halves face down in a skillet with water over medium heat for about 15 minutes.  Keep a careful eye on the acorn squash and make sure that the skillet does not boil dry.  (Burnt acorn squash in skillet is NOT fun to clean out.  Hence, I do not alway use this step.)  If you use this method, you will have to play around with the cooking times mentioned above.

Apple of My Eye

Princess is a smart little girl.  She is active and happy and such a girlie-girl.  Last Tuesday we went to the eye doctor for her six month check up.  She gets the dubious honor of going every six months to the eye doctor.

I just finally got around to getting a copy of her prescription.  You know it is not a good sign when the new eye doctor (like the first eye doctor from April) asks, "Was you daughter born pre-mature?"  Nope, she was full-term.

I had a better chance to interrogate this eye doctor than the other.  He was a lot nicer and a lot more friendlier.  Apparently Princess has very large eyes for the ripe old age of 3 1/2.  She has both myopia (near-sightedness) and astigmatisms.  The previous eye doctor said that she has probably had eye problems since she was a few weeks old.

We got our first set of glasses in May (it took a while to find some frames).  The prescription was not full-strength then.  So now she is going to get the full strength lens.  

We would of had them by now, but there was a little goof and the lenses company cannot find the order.  So they have been reordered with a rush added to them.  I started laughing when the local tech told me over the phone.  Which of course shocked her and she said that that had never happened to her before (which I am sure is true).  I keep laughing anyway and told her that stuff always happens to me.  Hopefully Princess will get her new lenses on Friday.  

So her new prescription is:

OD: -5.25 sph, -1.50 cyl, 110 axis
OS: -5.50 sph, -2.00 cyl, 070 axis

So does that make sense to you?  Didn't think so.  It did not make much sense to me either.  So I went to the Little Four Eyes site and found a link that broke it down into simpler terms.  I also visited the link to Wolfram Alpha that described how far she can see.

Prescription Translation:  

Princess' left eye is moderately near-sighted, with a moderate astigmatism.  The left eye can see up to 0.55 feet without blurriness.  Princess' right eye is moderately near-sighted, with a severe astigmatism.  The right eye can see up to 0.50 feet without blurriness.

Sort of scary that a child's eye sight can be that bad.  The fact that it will get much worse as she grows is even more frightening.  The first doctor said that she would need bifocals by the time she is in kindergarten, so we will eventually see if the second doctor agrees.  For the time being, we will have to keep an eye on Princess and hope for the best.

What's A Mom To Do?

Sometimes being a mom is great and other times it just plain sucks.  

Pumpkin is still struggling with his behavior in kindergarten.  When the notes come home from school, I just want to shake my head.  I know that this is something that a lot of families with young children face, but when it is your own child you wonder. . . What am I doing wrong?  What can I do different?  How can I modify my child's behavior?  How can I reward good behavior?  How can I discourage bad behavior?

Pumpkin is a complete mystery in this department for both us and his teacher.  We have met with his teacher twice this school year and have kept in contact via email.  Trial and error seems to be the method of choice for dealing with Pumpkin.  He is a really great, good kid, but acts before he thinks which is where most of the trouble comes into play.  When asked "Should you have done that?"  The answer is always "No."  So the key seems to be to figure out how to make a five year old think before his acts.  A very hard concept to figure out how to teach.

Right now he seems to be a hands-on learner.  He has been more talkative about the two class field trips so far this year than anything else.  They have been to the fire station and an apple orchard.  Both field trips he talked about for days and even told me all about an apple cider press.  

He also love to sing and can memorize better using that aspect.  He has sang me a really cute days of the week song (sung to the music of the "Adams Family" theme song).  And of course the Johnny Appleseed song is one of my favorites from 4-H camp when I was younger.

Another problem is that after 2 1/2 months of school Pumpkin still does not know any of his classmates names.  Very strange, I know.  We have talked with the teacher about working to solve this and we now have our very own "friends book", so we can look at pictures of his classmates with their names in an attempt to memorize their names.  Which is much better than calling them "monkey", "cheeseburger", "cookie", etc....  

I am still not sure what to do with Pumpkin.  I guess we need to roll with the punches, but it an definitely be frustrating at times.  Guess I'll need to keep praying, keep talking about the rules, and keep my chin up because tomorrow is another day to start afresh and anew.

The Evens Have It!

Sorry that it has been a bit since the last post.  I thought about posting earlier in the week but noticed that I was at an even number of posts for the month.  I did not think that I could get two posts in, so I waited.  

Why?  Well I seem to have this weird thing about numbers and if you go back and look at my archives I have managed to post an even number of posts every single month since I started this blog.  Strange, right!  

I don't know why but sometimes the world just seems off if you don't do things a certain way.  I know I am way messed up, but that is what makes of us unique and special.

We have been up to quite a bit since the last posting.  See for yourself!

Trick or Treating at the local zoo

Breath taking sunrise over the tree line

Princess playing in the leaves

Pumpkin hiding in the leaf pile

Pumpkin trying to bury Mommy

Our ghost jack'o-lantern

Halloween morning moon

The "Big Bang Theory" Halloween fun with friends

Well have a Happy November!