Let’s talk about your day. How did it go? Did something unexpected happen? How about you went to start your car and it wouldn’t turn over, making you later than usual. At the office, your suppose to do a presentation and the computer wouldn’t pull up your business proposal. You’ve got a group of 4-H kids coming over in 30 minutes to work on their projects in your living room. These are just a couple examples of how busy and hectic life can get for a busy mom. I’m sure you could come up with more or different ones. 

After a day like this, dinner is the last thing we want to struggle with. We all wish we could just snap our fingers and PRESTO, dinner is served.  Stir-Fry is truly a great wonder meal for a busy mom. There are few meals that are quicker cooked on the stove than stir-fry. It involves nothing more than simply adding vegetables and meats to a wok or skillet to allow you to move food from one hot area to the next for faster cooking.

The great thing about stir-fry is that you can mix almost everything together with great results. A perfect way to use those leftover meats you had from one of the previous nights.

Apricot-Honey Glazed Chicken Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups chicken (leftovers from Monday’s Meal )

4 cups veggies of your choice cut up, such as broccoli, bell pepper, carrots, squash, mushroom and onion -Use whatever you have in your fridge. If it’s only two veggies, it will still taste good.

Sauce:

4 Tablespoons honey

1 Tablespoon Apricot preserves

3 Tablespoons Rice vinegar

2 Tablespoons orange juice

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1 Tablespoon corn startch

2 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Ginger-Wasabi Sauce (available at Noel’s Kitchen)

Directions:

In a small bowl mix sauce ingredients with a whisk. Set aside. In a large skillet on medium-high heat oil, add vegetables and stir 3-4 minutes until they are crisp-tender. Remove from skillet. Add chicken to skillet and cook 3 minutes, add sauce mixture stirring frequently until sauce thickens. Return vegetables to skillet and combine with chicken and sauce mixture. Stir until completed heated.

Serve with rice or asian noodles. Drizzle Ginger-Wasabi sauce over the top.

  Remember when making stir-fry,  meats and vegetables all cook at different rates. It is important to add your slow-cooking vegetables early in the cooking process and fast-cooking ingredients later. Your thinly sliced meat will cook very quick. Below is a table to help you determined which vegetables cook slow and which ones cook fast.