Shredded Chicken with Green Peppers and Carrots

I will be making this for dinner tonight so I figured I might as well add this one next. Prep for this meal is a CHORE and takes forever it seems (honestly only like 30 minutes but sometimes that's too much). The great thing about this recipe, though, is you can prepare everything in the morning or the night before when you have time to cut everything up, then just throw this all together in the amount of time it takes to cook the rice. I got this recipe from the American Heart Association's cookbook so I can't take any credit for it. I haven't even added my own flare to it because it is just that good the way it was written.

3 Chicken breasts, frozen (it's easier to cut when frozen... trust me... read on)

4 tsp Corn starch

4 tsp Soy sauce

1 Tbsp Dry sherry (now, I don't drink so I just use cooking sherry... not sure what the difference is but because I don't drink I don't really notice any difference:))

1 Egg white slightly beaten

5 Tbsp Olive oil (actually, I have changed this recipe slightly because this is a lot of oil to use, no matter how good this oil is for you, it's still oil so I only use like 2 Tbsp)

1 Carrot, shaved with a peeler then sliced (or you can grate it, doesn't really matter)

1 Green pepper, thinly sliced

1 tsp Fresh ginger, thinly shredded

1 tsp Sugar

2 Tbsp cold water

First of all get some rice cooking. I most often use calrose rice but sometimes I'll use brown. For the calrose (sticky) rice rinse 2 cups of rice under hot water. Once the water runs clear pour the rice in a medium sauce pan, add 3 cups of water, bring it to a boil, cover it, lower the heat to lowish and cook for 20 minutes. I have the worst luck with rice cookers so I just don't even bother trying to find one that will work for longer than a month. For brown rice I soak 1 cup for about 10 minutes, drain and rinse, bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add 1 tsp butter, a dash of salt, then add the rice, reduce the heat to lowish, cover and cook for 45 minutes. It comes out nice and fluffy every time. 

Mix 2 tsp corn starch, 2 tsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp sherry, and beaten egg white in a medium bowl. Slice the chicken paper thin, this is where the frozen part comes in handy because it is so much easier to slice a frozen breast super thin than it is a thawed one. Put the chicken in the soy sauce/corn starch mixture and let stand 30 minutes. 

While that is marinating slice the carrot, pepper, and 1 tsp ginger. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmery. Add carrot, cook 1 minute, then add the pepper and cook an additional minute. Remove the veggies from the pan. Add another Tbsp of olive oil, wait until it shimmers then add 1 tsp ginger. Saute for ginger for 30 seconds then add the chicken with the marinade. You can strain out the juices but there is never enough for me to strain out so I don't bother. Cook until the chicken is all the way cooked through then add the veggies, 1 tsp sugar, and 2 tsp soy sauce. Mix 2 Tbsp cold water with 2 tsp corn starch then add it to the pan and cook another minute until thickened.

Spoon this mixture over the rice and you have a super yummy, super healthy dinner!