General Taos chicken

Yesterday I took the kids to Great Big Adventure for Liam's inaugural visit. He had a blast; climbing, running, giving people their bottles of water as I chased behind him. We had a great time.  

Before we knew it Aubrey was starving and asking for mashed potatoes and corn. Where do I get this at 6pm?! After giving it a little thought I knew the perfect place. This would be Aubrey's inaugural visit to KFC! Woah Big day!

Chicken, mashed potatoes and corn with gravy on the side; just what she wanted. I only felt like a little bit of a failure; but then with her tummy satisfied I realized I was actually a genius!

So given that back history I knew I wanted to make a dinner at home tonight but I was also craving yummy Chinese food...what to do?  My wonderul neighbour gave us fresh beans from their garden and I had rice on hand so I knew a few pieces of the dinner puzzle; I put rice in the rice cooker, beans ready to cook in water and headed to the store (this was at 4:30PM).

I bought a $11 pack of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and chopped them into chunks. I coated them in cornstarch, and dry onion soup mix. I spread this out evenly on an olive oiled parchment paper lined baking sheet  and put it in a 415F oven on convection.

After about 15 minutes they looked pretty much cooked but very blond. I tossed the chicken chunks in some General Tao VH sauce that I had thinned with a bit of soya sauce and added some seasoned peanuts for texture. I put this back in the oven to get crispy, sticky and a little char in colour (about 10 minutes...you'd have to work really hard to make chicken thighs dry)....all I can say is yum!

At 5:30PM dinner was served and what a great dinner it was. Liam had two bowls and couldn't shovel it in fast enough. It's so nice when a vision comes through to fruition.

 

I was so thrilled my sister Cher had stayed for dinner; she loved it and said it was reminiscent  of Pfchangs. Well thank you very much!