Sweet and Sour Chicken:
This recipe originally came from here, and I've actually found a couple other great recipes on this blog too. An important note: this chicken takes an hour to bake...plan accordingly (we didn't realize this and ended up having a late dinner).
The chicken coating:
3-4 boneless chicken breasts
salt & pepper
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup canola oil
Sweet and sour sauce:
3/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons ketchup
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt
Start by preheating the oven to 325 degrees. Rinse the chicken breasts, cut them into cubes, and season with salt and pepper. Heat the canola oil in a large skillet. Coat the chicken in the cornstarch then dip the coated chicken into the beaten eggs. Cook the chicken in the skillet until browned, but not cooked through.
Once browned, transfer the chicken to a greased 9x13 baking dish. Whisk all the ingredients together to make the sweet and sour sauce. At this point, the original recipe calls for you to pour the sweet and sour sauce over the chicken in the pan and then bake it all together for an hour, turning the chicken every 15 minutes. However, we found that our chicken was pretty sticky and doughy when we did it this way. I think when we make this again we'll bake the chicken without the sauce and instead, make the sauce in a saucepan and heat it but use it on the side to dip the chicken into. This way, the chicken will hopefully stay crispy and it allows each person to choose how much sauce they'd like.
We also decided to cut up a few peppers into large chunks and sauteed them in a large pan with a small amount of oil over medium heat. We threw some pineapple in there too and added the mixture to our plate when the chicken was done.
Baked Crab Rangoon:
I just love crab rangoon but the fact that it's fried makes it delicious but rather unhealthy, so I was super excited when I found this recipe!
2 tablespoons light sour cream
8 oz reduced fat cream cheese, softened
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup crab meat, drained
wonton wrappers (these can generally be found in the produce section)
Preheat the oven to 415 degrees. In a bowl, mix together the sour cream, cream cheese, scallion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and sugar. Once well combined, fold in the crab meat. We used imitation crab which came in large chunks so we cut our up into much smaller pieces before folding it in. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
Lay a wonton wrapper on your work surface and spoon about 2 teaspoons of the filling into the center of the wrapper. Brush two adjacent sides of the wrapper with water (this will help seal the wrapper) and then fold the wrapper over on the diagonal. Press around the filling to remove any air pockets and then press the sides together to seal the wrapper--if any air pockets are left, the wrapper will pop open while cooking and some filling will escape.
After the wrapper is sealed, transfer to the baking sheet. Once all the wrappers are completed (it should make about 20 or so), transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake for about 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown and crispy.
We found that while the edges and bottom of our were crispy, the top remained a bit doughy. Next time, we plan to turn the wrappers over about halfway through in hopes of getting an overall crisp. Also, I don't recommend reheating any leftovers in the microwave as they get very doughy...better to reheat in the oven.
Once it's all done, enjoy your delicious meal...we sure did!!
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