Pass The Sushi!

I am so tired of rain. :p blah. Nor­mally, I would never say that, as I enjoy a rainy day or a great big thun­der­storm, but right now, I could be play­ing in the dirt. I want to plant things and make a gar­den. My BF bought sun­flow­ers for the back­yard and all kinds of other plants and they are just sit­ting in their lit­tle plant like con­tain­ers bored. Oh well, it’s not like I know how to gar­den any way.

Here’s a pic­ture of one I saw and liked:

I dig its messi­ness. That noth­ing looks orga­nized and yet, its all so well groomed to fit together. And the rock. A rock would take up a large amount of space where I couldn’t be plant­ing some­thing just to kill it.
This is what I think will work (haha, once again, I know noth­ing about gar­den­ing).

A lilac for most of the space along the back cor­ner. Rozanne gera­ni­ums, Com­mo­tion Tizzy, Domino Core­op­sis, Becky Shasta daisy (not that I remem­ber what a sin­gle one of these looks like, but they were all dif­fer­ent heights and col­ors which I want). For ground cov­er­age, I would like thyme. All I know is this spot gets full sun. No shade. Ever. Let’s see how far I get.

Last night for din­ner we used some of the pot stick­ers my BF’s mom gave us and I made honey-ginger chicken bites, rice and steamed broc­coli.

Honey-Ginger Chicken Bites from myrecipes.com

• 2/3  cup  honey
• 2  table­spoons  minced peeled fresh ginger
• 2  table­spoons  fresh lemon juice
• 2  table­spoons  cider vinegar
• 2  table­spoons  low-sodium soy sauce
• 2  tea­spoons  dark sesame oil
• 1  tea­spoon  grated orange rind
• 1  tea­spoon  Worces­ter­shire sauce
• 4  gar­lic cloves, minced
• 1 1/4  pounds  skin­less, bone­less chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces (about 16 thighs)
• Cook­ing spray
• 2  tea­spoons  cornstarch
• 2  tea­spoons  water
• 2  scal­lions chopped up for topping

Prepa­ra­tion

Com­bine first 9 ingre­di­ents in a large zip-top plas­tic bag; seal and shake well. Add chicken; seal and toss to coat. Refrig­er­ate at least 2 hours or overnight, turn­ing occasionally.

Pre­heat oven to 425°.

Remove chicken from bag, reserv­ing mari­nade. Arrange chicken in a sin­gle layer on the rack of a broiler pan coated with cook­ing spray. Sprin­kle chicken with salt and pep­per. Bake at 425° for 20 min­utes, stir­ring once.

While chicken is cook­ing, strain mari­nade through a sieve into a bowl; dis­card solids. Place mari­nade in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook 3 min­utes; skim solids from sur­face. Com­bine corn­starch and water in a small bowl; stir with a whisk. Add corn­starch mix­ture to pan, stir­ring with a whisk; cook 1 minute. Remove from heat; pour glaze into a large bowl.

Pre­heat broiler.

Add chicken to glaze; toss well to coat. Place chicken mix­ture on a jelly roll pan; broil 5 min­utes or until browned, stir­ring twice. Top with scallions.

The honey-ginger chicken was just ok. I would prob­a­bly rec­om­mend mar­i­nat­ing overnight and dou­bling the sauce to pour over the chicken at the end. On a side note, one should know this smoked up the kitchen pretty badly too as the extra glaze on the chicken burnt to the pan. Make sure that there’s not much extra sauce just hang­ing out on the pan or your in for a world of hurt. It was, how­ever, quick, easy and some­thing I can see tweak­ing to make again and again.