Sweet and Sour Chicken with Fried Rice

   

     This recipe is by far my family's favorite.  My husband describes it as "his favorite meal ever" and "the meal he would choose if he knew it were his last."  Those are pretty strong words.  It doesn't take too terribly long to make, but it's not one of those "whip it together really fast" type meals.  The longest step is baking the chicken in the oven for an hour.  My two year old has a cast on his right leg due to a broken tibia from a playground accident, so I was very relieved when my sister-in-law (who lives in town for college) offered to come over and play with my kids while I cooked this meal for dinner last night.  When I'm menu planning, I don't typically think of asian dishes off the top of my head, but I found this recipe on Pinterest and I'm so glad I did.  I found my recipe at Life as a Lofthouse, and tweaked it a little.

Chicken
Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1 cup cornstarch
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup canola oil

Sweet and Sour Sauce
Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbsp ketchup
1/2 cup vinegar
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp garlic salt

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2.  Cut chicken into cubes.  Roll chicken pieces in cornstarch and then dip them into eggs to coat.
3.  Heat 1/4 cup oil over medium high heat and cook two of the chicken breasts until browned.  Place chicken pieces in a greased 9 x 13 baking dish.  Heat remaining 1/4 cup of oil and cook the other two chicken breasts the same way.
4.  Sprinkle salt and pepper over chicken in dish.
5.  Whisk together ingredients for sweet and sour sauce and pour over chicken.
6.  Bake chicken in oven for one hour.  Remove every 15 minutes to turn chicken in sauce.


Fried Rice
Ingredients:
3 cups cooked white rice
3 Tbsp sesame oil
10 oz. frozen peas and carrots (thawed)
1 small onion, chopped
2 tsp minced garlic
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 cup soy sauce

Directions:
1.  Heat the sesame oil over medium high heat in a large skillet.
2.  Add the peas/carrots, onion, and garlic and saute until tender.
3.  Lower heat to medium low, push mixture to one side, add eggs to other side and cook until scrambled.
4.  Add rice and soy sauce.  Blend together and heat through.

This is how my chicken looked before adding sauce and baking

Push the veggies over to scramble eggs