Recipe: Roasted Chicken & Vegan Stir-Fry w/ Rice (A Not So Vegan Meal)

So tonight was the big night! I don't know how much Jen actually learned from me about cooking, but I had a lot of fun and it was so super delicious. I kind of forgot that I was supposed to be teaching her how to cook and just acted like the chief like I normally do. Oh well, maybe she'll read foodgawker and tastespotting like I told her to and figure stuff out. Or whatever, you know.

That being said, here's the write up for the night! The total meal was as follows

1. Rosemary Sundried Tomato Roasted Chicken with Stuffing
2. Stir-Fry!
3. RICE!

Here's some recipes!


Rosemary Sundried Tomato Roasted Chicken with Stuffing
Chicken:

• Two 3-5lb chickens
• At least 6 pieces of sun dried tomatoes
  
• A lot of fresh rosemary

Stuffing:

• Veggie oil
• 1 small-medium yellow onion
• 1/2 green bell pepper
• 2 celery stalks
• 2 one inch thick slices of challah (As in, two pieces of bread that are each one inch in thickness or width)
  
• 3 button mushrooms
  
• small handful of craisins
• 1 egg
• S&P
• Thyme and/or Sage

Directions:

1. Heat up some oil (not too much! Less than you think you need!!!) in a pan on mediumish heat.
   
2. Dice up the onion, pepper and celery. Here is an example of some foreign workers doing it for me!
   
3. Sauté onion for 1-2 minutes and then add in pepper and celery and sauté for about 5 minutes, stirring a good bit.
4. Toast the challah. Set that timer thing between light and medium, leaning more towards medium.
5. Dice up the mushrooms.
   
6. Wash the craisins to get the added sugar off.
7. Take the veggies out of the pan and add to a mixing bowl with the mushrooms and craisins.
8. Take the challah out of the toaster and dice it pretty finely, but not too finely!
9. Add the challah and the egg to the bowl and mix everything together.
10. Season as much as you like and then let sit until you're ready to stuff your birds. MMMM it looks so good!
    

CHICKEN:

1. Preheat the oven to about 350F.
   
2. Put the tomatoes in a little bowl and put some hot water over them, covering them to rehydrate them as much as is possible.
   
3. Unwrap the birds and, if necessary, take the neck, heart, gibs, etc... out of the cavity and then rinse the inside and out of the birds off. Look it's me!
   
4. Pat the chickens dry and then work your hand under the skin on the breasts.
5. Tear the tomatoes in half and stuff them and the rosemary under the breast skin. Put in as much as you like, cooking (not baking generally) recipes (especially mine) are best used as guidelines!
   Here, the one on the left definitely has stuff under the skin, but I'm not so sure that the one on the right does yet. Pretty sure it doesn't in fact.
   
6. If you haven't yet, put your birds on foil on your baking sheet. Important step: Make sure the tray you're baking it on fits in your oven! If it doesn't, then use a smaller one.
   


• NOTE: Don't use a baking sheet, use some kind of deeper roasting dish! Also if want you can place the chickens on a bed of veggies, any kind!


7. Stuff in the stuffing! It's OK if you have extra, just bake it separately! Also, some people say to not pack it in too tight because it expands but this has never happened to me, so stuff it in well!
   
8. Put birds in the oven for about 60 minutes covered in foil, and then take the Internal foil off for at least another 20-30 minutes. This allows the skin to crisp up at the end!


• The temperature should be about 180F. I used italics because that's what the case on the cooking thermometer I bought said. I'd recommend it to you but you're better off getting an instant digital one honestly. I used to have one but am no longer certain of it's location.


9. After the birds have rested for 10 minutes you can either hack them apart yourself or get someone more learned to do it for you!
10. I recommend checking youtube if you (like me!) do not know how to properly carve a bird. I did not do this, but have plans to eventually.
    

Stir-Fry
Ingredients:
(You could really use whatever the hell you want here, this is just what I felt like buying at Redner's today. Also, I didn't have any soy sauce so teriyaki was used. It still tasted super awesome!)

• Veggie oil
  
• A tiny bit of ginger, maybe half a pinky knuckle
  
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 smallish yellow onions
• 2 carrots
• 1 big broccoli stalk!
  
• 2 celery stalks
• 1.5 green bell peppers (or a similar amount of any colors)
• 1 green zucchini
• A couple handfuls of snap peas!
• Teriyaki and/or Soy Sauce
• Sesame Seed Oil

Directions:

1. Cut up everything however you want it. Examples: Slices of carrots, half rings of onions, diced garlic, chopped peppers, etc... Oh, I use most of the stalk as well as all of the heads of the broccoli. I really love eating the stalk and you should too! It is really nice to have this all done before you start cooking so you're not rushing around watching the stove and chopping stuff up. It allows you to just toss it in, no worries. That is, unless you forget about the zucchini like I did...oh well that's what helpers are for!
   
   
2. Heat the oil over medium-high heat.
3. When hot, toss in 3/4 of the garlic and all of the ginger, stir constantly for about 10-15 seconds.
4. Add in the onion, stir well with garlic/ginger and let cook stirring occasionally for about 3 minutes.
5. Add in the carrots and broccoli and stir-them well. It's pretty important from here on out to be stirring a lot. Definitely not constantly, but try not to take your eye off the pan for more than 10 seconds or so. It isn't called stir-fry for nothing!
   
6. After a couple minutes add in the celery and pepper.
7. Again, a few minutes later add in the zucchini and snap peas and stir it in well.
   Sorry this picture sucks so much. I guess the camera just couldn't handle the beauty of my cooking vegetables. If you have really poor vision and don't wear glasses or contact lenses, this is pretty much what your stir-fry should look like at this point.
   
8. Dump in however much sauce you want, stir it up, turn the heat down and then put a lid on for like 5 minutes.
9. Before you serve put a teensy bit of the sesame seed oil in and stir it around to coat the veggies. DO NOT USE TOO MUCH. This stuff is really strong and should really only be used at the end of cooking to add a little more depth of flavor to the food.
10. Serve over/with the rice.

RICE
Ingredients:

• 1 cup of rice
• 2 cups of water
• Pinch of kosher (or whatever really) salt

Directions:

1. Um...cook the rice.
2. Haha, but seriously turn a burner on high and put all 3 ingredients in
   
3. When it starts to boil stir it a bit, turn it down to medium and cover it with a lid.
4. I'm sure some people will object to the next part, dunno, but this is how I do my rice.
5. Every few minutes or less stir the rice to ensure the bottom doesn't get burnt and crusty (this is NOT paella).
6. When there isn't too much water left in the pot I generally take the lid off and allow some of it to evaporate, but you should definitely test the doneness of your rice. If at this point there's still a tiny little bite (hardness) to it then you're a-ok!
   I have a picture of the rice in the pot, but I don't feel that it's necessary to put it up. Let me know if you feel otherwise!
   
7. Server this under/around the stir-fry.

Well, this is my first ever real write up of a meal I've done and I guess it's looking pretty dandy! Overall even though there wasn't really any consistent theme to the meal, it tasted really good and everything seemed to come out about perfect! I'd like to thank Jen and Jesse for helping me out, as they were great! Also Jimmy for reimbursing me!

A good treat after you eat is to go to Dairy Queen and get a Chocolate Covered Cherry Blizzard! It is delicious, especially when it is also covered by the school.


If I had to do anything better next time, I think it would be planning out what pictures I want to take in advance. This time it was mostly willy-nilly and I think this post definitely suffered for it. Not a lot, but it definitely could've had some more relevant pictures.

That being said, here's the two carcasses I butchered because I don't know how to carve birds AT ALL. It was still REAL tasty though!


P.S. guys, you should for sure use those chicken carcasses to make stock! Click here to find out how!