Laurie’s<\/b> birthday was yesterday. I think she had a good day – despite having to work for the first time in many years on her birthday.
\nI cooked dinner and I think we found a couple winning recipes. They were both new to me and I did my own adaptations but I was pleased and we plan on holding on to them for use in the future.<\/p>\n
We started dinner off with a chicken teriyaki stir fry. We laughed that I’m not one who normally follows recipes very well. I like to make my own changes and such but here’s the recipes with my notes added. I eye balled all the measurements so none were exact.<\/p>\n
1\/3 c. chopped onion Combine onion, garlic, soy sauce, oil, wine, and honey; mix well. Arrange chicken in shallow baking dish; pour sauce over. Marinate at room temperature 30 minutes, turning several times. (I cooked the chicken breasts whole in a shallow pan on the stove and then cut them up after they were done cooking. After they were cut up I put them back in the sauce on low for a few minutes to soak up additional flavor).<\/em><\/p>\n Broil or grill while brushing with sauce until tender. Cook stir-fry vegetables and place on platter. Arrange chicken breasts over top. Makes 6 servings.<\/p>\n STIR-FRY VEGETABLES In wok or large heavy skillet, heat butter and oil. Add carrot and onion; stir- fry 3-4 minutes. Stir in other vegetables and stir-fry 2 minutes or cook until they way you like them. (i actually added all the vegetables in our wok as I finished cutting them up. then i turned on the stove and cooked them all together with the butter and oil. i also added the parsley to the mix in the beginning which added some fun color to the mix and kicked up the flavor a bit.) For desert I had angel food cake with an orange sauce topping. For the sauce I used 3\/4 cup of sugar, 12 oz. frozen orange juice from concentrate and 2-4 tbs. of corn starch. Very delicious. The original recipe called for a can of mandarin oranges and peaches and only 6 oz. of OJ but Laurie’s not a fan of peaches and I forgot the oranges at the store so I adapted.<\/p>\n I had a glass of Pinot grigio that went great with the chicken and stir fry but became a bit bitter when drinking with the desert. We finished the evening off with a 2 mile walk down the Waxahachie Hike and Bike Trail with Presley<\/strong>. It was a great night for a walk and we tried out geocaching<\/a> for the first time with a borrowed GPS unit. We’re still hoping to get our own for our wedding – hint hint. None the less, it was a great evening and I’m looking forward to spending countless more birthdays and special occasions with the love of my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Laurie’s birthday was yesterday. I think she had a good day – despite having to work for the first time in many years on her birthday. I cooked dinner and I think we found a couple winning recipes. They were both new to me and I did my own adaptations but I was pleased and … Continue reading Birthday fun<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,10,3,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-hacks","category-mi-familia","category-misc","category-reflections"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-BN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1 clove garlic, crushed
\n1\/3 c. soy sauce
\n2 tbsp. salad oil (used a low fat cooking oil)<\/em>
\n2 tbsp. white cooking wine
\n1 tbsp. honey
\n3 chicken breasts split<\/p>\n
\n1 tbsp. butter
\n1 tbsp. salad oil (same low fat cooking oil)<\/em>
\n2 c. sliced carrots
\n1 c. sliced onion
\n2 c. green beans or broccoli (i used fresh snap green beans)<\/em>
\n2 c. cauliflower or cabbage (i used cauliflower)<\/em>
\n2 tbsp. lemon juice (i squeezed the juice from a full lemon)<\/em>
\n1\/2 tsp. salt (optional)
\ndash pepper
\n2 tbsp. chopped parsley<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>
\nAdd other ingredients and stir. Sprinkle chopped parsley over.<\/p>\n
\nI have the recipe at home but I ended up changing it a good deal anyways.
\nI started with a regular store bought angel food cake.<\/p>\n
\nI mixed the three ingredients together and then heated them in a sauce pan. I added a bit of water in the beginning and then stirred until the corn starch helped thicken the sauce, similar to gravy. I added several dashes of cinnamon to step it up a notch. And then poured the warm sauce over a slice of angel food cake and topped with whip cream.<\/p>\n
\nAll in all I thought it was a great birthday dinner – we’ll just have to wait and see if Laurie blogs about it and says the same thing ;-).<\/p>\n
\nWe failed at our first two attempts: N 32\u00c2\u00b0 22.344 W 096\u00c2\u00b0 50.198 and N 32\u00c2\u00b0 22.193 W 096\u00c2\u00b0 49.850 but we probably didn’t search as hard as we should have. We were right in the area but quit because of the overgrowth and poison ivy in the area. I was wearing shorts and Laurie gave me strict instructions to not get poison ivy less than two weeks before our wedding.<\/p>\n