Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken and Fried Rice

We love Chinese food!  But I always have a hard time recreating it.  I have tried several types of recipes and although they taste good, they don't really cut it.  But then I found this recipe from Life as a Lofthouse.  The whole family loved it and cleaned their plates.  I loved that it was relatively healthy since it was baked and not fried.  My husband said he liked it better than the restaurant ones because the chicken was a lot more tender and moist.  I was happy to find a fried recipe that was good.

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

The chicken coating:

3-4 boneless chicken breast halves

salt + pepper

1 cup cornstarch

2 eggs, beaten (I actually ended up using 3)

1/4 cup canola oil

The sweet and sour sauce: ( I actually ended up using 1 1/2 of this recipe....so I made it and then made another half)

3/4 cup sugar

4 tbs ketchup

1/2 cup distilled white vinegar

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tsp garlic salt

Preheating your oven to 325 degrees. Cut the chicken into cubes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste. Dip chicken into the cornstarch to coat then dip into the eggs.  Heat your 1/4 cup oil in a large skillet and cook your chicken until browned but not cooked through. Place the chicken in a 9x13 greased baking dish. Mix all of your sweet and sour sauce ingredients in a bowl with a whisk and then pour evenly over the chicken. Bake for one hour and during the baking process you will need to turn the chicken every 15 minutes.  

Fried Rice                                                                                             

3 cups cooked white rice 

3 tbs sesame oil

1 cup frozen peas and carrots, ( I just used some from a mixed veggie bag)

1 small onion, chopped

2 tsp minced garlic

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/4 cup soy sauce

      On medium high heat, heat the oil in a large skillet or wok.  Add the peas/carrots mix, onion and garlic. Stir fry until tender. Lower the heat to medium low and push the mixture off to one side, then pour your eggs on the other side of skillet and stir fry until scrambled. Now add the rice and soy sauce and blend all together well. Stir fry until thoroughly heated!   **You could really play around with this rice too! Try adding some diced ham, or green onion :) Yum!