This One Needs Some Work

While searching for some healthy dinner options I came across Martha Stewart's Lighter Sesame Chicken.  I decided to give it a try.  The sauce seemed way too simple to be tasty but it was.  I changed it up a bit though.  Instead of 3 tablespoons of honey I used 1-honey, 1-agave nectar, and 1-plum duck sauce.  The two tablespoons of sesame seeds was a little to much for just one piece of chicken (we usually share one).  Rob's rating: "It's okay.  You went a little crazy with the sesame seeds though."  The chicken was crispier than I thought it was going to be, but I have an issue with sauteing chicken with batter on it.  No matter what I do, I always get splashed with numerous amounts of oil while trying to flip the chicken.  Yes I have one of those splatter screens but I still get burnt.  I'm going to have to work on that.  I may make this one again and definitely recommend it if you want a lighter chinese dish to try, but I think I will keep tweaking it.

You can see the mountain of sesame seeds in this one.  =)

Strawberry Shortcake Shortcut

I decided to make Rob a strawberry shortcake for his birthday but I didn't want to use angel food cake or your typical box mix.  I figured that boxed cake mix is a little too spongy for strawberry shortcake.  Instead, I decided to add whipped egg whites to the boxed cake mix and see what happened.  I whipped up 4 egg whites and folded them into a mix of French Vanilla cake mix.  While baking, the cake got really puffy and I got excited, thinking about how light and fluffy it would be when cooled.  However, as soon as I took it out of the oven it began to fall.  It turned out really good though.  The consistency was different from your typical boxed mix, not as spongy and more on the fluffy side.  I will definitely use this trick again.

I iced the cake with home made whipped cream and added a layer of sliced strawberries macerated in sugar in the middle.  Then I topped it with some strawberries just so it looked pretty.