Quinoa stir fry with chicken and vegetables

Let me begin by saying I am disgusted with most of the major chicken companies. Primarily, Tyson. I know, I know, I just need to buy organic. Unfortunately, our roommate just moved out and it’s all I can scrape to buy my spinach organic. But Tyson is just ridiculous. The quality is horrendous, and they are grossly overpriced unless you can catch it when the family packs are on sale for $1.98/lb. So this week, nearly out of chicken, I opted for the Ingles meat counter’s stir fry chicken packet. They’re pre cleaned, pre sliced for stir fry, and looked better overall than most all of the Tyson at the store.

I’ve been craving Chinese food really badly for a week or so now, and it was brought to a whole new level on Friday night because my family ordered take out and it smelled delicious. Tonight I threw together a healthy take on stir fry with Quinoa, the prepared chicken, tons of delicious veggies, and a little Asian flavor.

I ate my fill, mom loved it, and dad had seconds. And maybe thirds. It was definitely delicious. Alex had some of the same chicken chopped smaller and made into quesadillas, and he thoroughly enjoyed those, too.

Quinoa stir fry with chicken and vegetables:

1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 medium zucchini squash
1 medium yellow squash
2 medium carrots
1 cup portabello mushrooms
1/2 medium yellow bell pepper
1 medium stalk of broccoli
1 package stir fry chicken, about 1/2 lb
Soy sauce/duck sauce to taste (we didn’t have bottles on hand so it was equivalent to 7 packets of Kari-Out soy sauce, and 4 packets of Kari-Out duck sauce.

Bring 1/2 cup quinoa and 1 cup chicken broth to a rapid boil. Boil for 10 minutes, adding about 3/4 a cup of water halfway through. When most liquid has been absorbed, remove from heat and cover. Leave aside until everything else is ready to serve.

I began by prepping all of my veggies. I simply sliced the zucchini and squash into medallions, and then halved or quartered them depending on the medallion size. I cut florets off the top of the broccoli, and set the stalk aside. Mushrooms got a rough chop, keeping them fairly large since they cook down quite a bit. The carrots were thinly sliced lengthwise and the bell pepper was chopped into bite sized pieces. I trimmed the outer skin off the broccoli stalk, and julienned it so that it mimicked the bamboo shoots I love so much in restaurant Chinese food.

In a large skillet or wok, heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp butter. Add all veggies, kickin’ chickn’ seasoning to taste, and saute until all veggies are soft but still a little crisp. When veggies are cooked, add soy sauce, duck sauce, and ground ginger to taste, and reduce heat to low allowing vegetables to simmer while you cook the chicken.

Add 2 tbsp olive oil to another saute pan, add chicken, kickin’ chickn seasoning and saute until chicken is golden-brown and cooked through. Add chicken to vegetables, and serve on top of quinoa.

This makes about 6 healthy servings, and contains: 197 calories, 19g of carbs, 5g of fat, 22g of protein, 248mg sodium, and 3g of fiber.

To be or not to be…organic

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really gotten into the whole organic food madness. Of course, I enjoy shopping at the local farmer’s market way more than any grocery store, but I don’t often make the extra effort to do so. As I’ve been slowly changing the foods that I eat to incorporate more fresh vegetables and fruits, it’s something that I have begun looking into, but I still didn’t really have a whole lot of buy-in for the movement. My veggies taste fine.

Then I saw this YouTube video, where a young girl (elementary school) does an experiment with some sweet potatoes, to see how long it takes a sweet potato to start growing vines. I won’t tell you the story, I’ll let her tell you:

After that, I got to thinking. I got to researching, looking up more videos, articles, and the differences in eating organic really are astounding. But where does that leave individuals like myself, individuals on a budget? I’ve already had to combat Alex’s rapidly developing mental-heart condition over the price of veggies from the produce aisle instead of the canned food or frozen aisle, how do I add the extra cost of organic to that?

Thank fully my search led me to another video that really helps people on a budget determine what must be organic, and what is okay to eat from the regular produce department. And I’m glad I did…check out what the last item of this list is! Something I’ve been eating raw daily in my salad, and cooked every night with my dinner!

Is organic the only way? I hope not. I know there are a lot of people out there working very hard to get healthy and stay fit, and a lot of them in my boat (affectionately referred to as the poor boat) who just won’t be able to make the shift to organic produce. But along with my mantra this whole time, it’s not about reshaping my entire universe in one day. It’s about slowly making lasting changes to achieve an overall more healthy lifestyle. If that means I have to wait until my home-grown spinach crops come in to eat organic, then I guess the regular stuff is better than McDonald’s for now!

Do any of you have experience with the differences between organic and non-organic produce that you can share?