Dinner Concoction

The initial inspiration for last night's dinner was my desire to use up the abundance of citrus fruit I had in my fridge.  It's kinda odd for me to have a stockpile of citrus fruit - in this case clementines and key limes - given that while I like the flavor, I despise the pithy crap that comes with them.

So, I started off by juicing the clementines and key limes to make some sauce to go with some chicken.  Here is what I put together in the sauce:

- 1.25 cups citrus juice
- 0.25 cup maple syrup
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 0.50 cup red onion, minced
- 0.25 cup fresh ginger root, minced
- salt
- corn starch
- cold water

I combined the juice, syrup, onion, garlic and ginger in a sauce pan, along with a pinch of fresh ground sea salt.  I brought everything to a boil over medium heat.  Once the garlic, onion and ginger were tender, I thickened the sauce using some corn starch mixed with cold water.

I combined a bundle of soba noodles and udon noodles and cooked both according to the package directions.  After draining them, I added a couple of tablespoons of butter to the still hot noodles, and then added in carrot and celery slivers (from two peeled carrots, and two celery stalks, created using a citrus zester).  When I make this again, I want to substitute some bean sprouts for the celery.  I also added some toasted sesame seeds to the pasta and veggie mix.

I had cooked about a pound diced of chicken breast in a skillet, using some butter in the pan instead of oil and adding some salt and pepper for taste.  Once cooked through, I added the chicken to the sauce, and then served the chicken over the pasta and veggies, with some additional sesame seeds for garnish.

So, this started out as using up some stuff from the fridge, but was good enough that I totally want to make it again sometime!  :)