Recipe: Almond Asparagus Chicken

Lately I've been craving a super yummy dish from an Asian restaurant in town.  It's a chicken dish with asparagus, almonds, sun dried tomatoes over rice. It is so delicious, I think I could eat it just about every day. But, that restaurant it expensive, and so I decided to recreate it at home! I found a recipe online where someone else had the same idea as me and came up with a copycat recipe. I used this as my base and made my own modifications!

The results? It turned out really delicious, but not quite as yummy as the restaurant version. It's still unique and definitely worth making and really is sooo good!



You will start by cutting up some asparagus into about 1 inch pieces (exact recipe to follow)

  



Cut up some chicken into very thin pieces, cutting at an angle.

  
 Mix up a marinade with mayo, garlic, cumin, soy sauce,  red pepper flakes and coat the asparagus, sun dried tomatoes and chicken...

Put a little oil in a hot skillet and add the mixture. Cook until the chicken is cooked through. It shouldn't take too long if you sliced the chicken super thin! Don't cook it too long or all of that yummy sauce will evaporate and it will end up too dry. If it seems like it needs more liquid, you could add a bit of water.

  

Serve up some rice. Brown is the healthiest option, but this sushi rice makes more of a "sticky rice" consistency for a treat!

Dish it up and sprinkle with toasted almond slices.

  So easy, yummy and fairly healthy! A good way to get the kiddos to try asparagus!

 
Here is the exact recipe:

Almond Asparagus Chicken

• 1 lb chicken breasts
• 1.5 cups chopped asparagus 
• 1/2 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 3/4 cup mayo
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbs soy sauce
• Rice

Cook rice according to package directions.  Cut chicken into very thin slices, cutting on an angle. Cut up asparagus and sun dried tomatoes into bite size pieces.  Mix mayo, cumin, red pepper, garlic, salt and soy sauce in a bowl.  Put chicken, asparagus and sun dried tomatoes in a baggie and add the mayo mixture. Let it marinade for about 10 minutes.  Heat some oil in a large skillet, add chicken mixture and cook over medium heat until chicken is cooked through, being careful not to overcook. Add a little bit of water if mixture gets too dry.  Serve  over rice and top with toasted almonds. Enjoy!

Tuesday Tutorial: Diy Dishtowels

 I'm back with a kithen-y tutorial for your Tuesday. I was looking for new dishtowels for the kitchen and realized that all the cute ones are pretty pricey! So, I decided to try to personalize my own. It ended up being super fun and something that would be a great gift. You could do so many fun things with these little dishtowels.

I tried three different techniques and they are all various levels of "easy"!

I used flour sack towels from Target. You can also find them at Walmart. I think it was about $6 for 4 of them. You also need some fabric paint and a sponge brush.

The first towel is so easy that I don't really have any process pictures to show you.  All I did was find an old lid and dip in the fabric paint and "stamp" it on.

For the next one, I cut various strips of freezer paper.

Iron the freezer paper down, shiny side down onto the towel.

Put a newspaper under your towel and paint with as sponge brush in between the freezer paper strips.

Once it's dry, peel it off....and you have a sweet little striped towel!

Finally, I decided I needed an owl towel to go with my other 2 owls in the kitchen. (thanks Erin for the cute container!)

I found a silhouette of an owl online, and using an exacto knife cut it out of freezer paper.

Once it's cut, iron the freezer paper, shiny side down onto your towel

Paint on the inside of the owl with fabric paint and once it's dry, peel it off. Done!


I think they spruce things up a bit in the kitchen

You could use the freezer paper to make funny sayings or personalized images and give them as gifts.

Happy crafting!

linked up here

A Kitchen Update...almost done!

The past 2 weekends have been spent finally tiling our back splash. I was easier than we thought it would be. We chose white subway tile with a light gray grout and we love it! Obviously we still need to finish up the trim, switching out the light sockets and covers, adding some cabinet doors, switching out the light fixtures...but I think it's definitely looking presentable!




Again, here is the "BEFORE":

And here it is today in progress! A million times better?

The grout turned out a bit more tan than I was expecting, but it still blends well and give just enough contrast with the white:

We still need to add trim to that little space under the cabinets and switch out those nasty outlets.

And here is the the other side of the kitchen with the little white table and benches that I painted. Jane loves cooking in her kitchen while I cook in mine! I actually have a little update for the play kitchen as well...don't want to leave that little guy out!