Mandarin Orange Chicken and Jasmine Rice

 

 



I made the kids dinner last night, first try of the oh so famous orange chicken and rice. The chicken was GOOD, and I do mean GOOD as promised. And it made quite a lot of food. According to package it makes 5C of chicken. The thing I really liked I hadn't seen discussed before was the fact there was two separate sauce packets inside, so you can EASILY split the chicken into two servings...unlike a lot of foods you find.
I baked mine and it turned out well, I cut up a few of the larger chucks as I was catering to small children...plus it should be bite sized anyway!
I only used about 1 and 1/4th packets of sauce which was plenty I found.

The kids take after me and don't do spicy foods well....as in pepperoni is often too spicy for our taste. I LOVE spice, but my entire mouth goes numb and it's really difficult to enjoy your dinner after that I find. This chicken had NO kick to it and the kids were MAD for it. My 8yr old ate the lions share...probably half the bag himself. the 5yr old and I had much smaller portions.
I think next time I will mix it up and after serving the kids add a little spice (sesame oil?) for myself as I think it needed a touch more heat. Like I said, I LOVE it...just can't tolerate much!

at 4.99 this was a bargain and I'm glad I bought a few! A

The rice was surprising for me. I won't touch instant or boil in a bag with a 12 ft stick.
My mother came to visit and made instant and I almost gagged....So spoiled I've become. I have a rice cooker that makes good rice, but it's honestly a pain to clean and takes awhile.
The rice comes with 3 bags containing about 2c each. I nuked up 2 bags and ended up sticking half a bag in the fridge.
in 3 minutes the rice was PERFECT. magically so. better than any rice I've EVER had from pei wei, Chinese takeout, PF Chang's, umm....really anywhere.
Better than some of the rice I've made in my cooker (subpar rice people) and super super easy. I like the packets which means I can make smaller portions. If I hadn't been sick I probably would have eaten more rice myself making 2 about right.

3.49 for 6c of magically delish rice?  A+++