Orange Chicken and Vegetable Stir fry

Lots of rain last night, so the kid's 5pm soccer game was cancelled.  That left me with no plans for dinner.  Let me explain, we take my parents to his games, not by force mind you.  My mom always has some plans for dinner... take out, eat out, leftovers or some plan ahead meal if it's a late game.  So now, it was either hope to get invited to dinner (I've only invited myself once), go out or come up with something.  When I phoned to tell them the game was cancelled, I got "see you tomorrow morning" from my mom.  Guess we're not going over there for dinner.

"What to do, what to do?"  OK, something easy, well let me rephrase that, something that I have ingredients for and don't have to run to Kroger for.  Hot dogs, corn and baked bean?  No buns, but there is bread.  Nah, we're going to Oktoberfest tomorrow.  I'll probably have a brat.  Pasta?  Nah, we had Italian sausage soup last night (that's another recipe to post).  Plus I want to go to Buca di Beppo on Tuesday.  What's in the frig?  Broccoli that I want to use!  OK, what's in the freezer that's quick to thaw?  Chicken!  I know there's some pre-cooked "shredded" chicken breast.  I also had onion, celery, and a red pepper.  Chinese would be nice.  I looked through my Chinese pinterest recipes and decided on .Orange chicken and vegetable stir fry.  I will definitely make this again using my own tweeks and freshly sliced chicken, not the desperate 'grab stuff from the freezer' chicken.  Also, I had to use garlic powder instead of the real stuff.  I used up my garlic in the soup yesterday.

Yummy vegetables!

The shredded chicken tasted OK, but, yeah, strips of chicken would have been much better. 

 Here's how I did, or would do it...

Orange Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry

Ingredients:

For the sauce:
  1/2 cup orange juice
  1 tbs grated orange zest

  2 big garlic cloves   

  1 tbs oyster sauce
  2 tbs rice vinegar
  2 tbs soy sauce

  1 tsp minced ginger

  1 tbs cornstarch

  1 cup water

  A dash of honey, sugar or agave

For the stir-fry:
  1 lb chicken breast cut into strips
  3 tbs cornstarch

  1 tbs soy sauce
  4-5 cups chopped fresh. vegetables such as broccoli, peppers, carrots, celery, onion, snow peas
  Oil for cooking
  salt and pepper to taste

Mix all sauce ingredients in a bowl, set aside.  Spice the chicken with salt & pepper.  Add the cornstarch and rub the chicken with it. 
In a large pan or wok, cook the chicken for about 2 minutes in about 1 tbs of oil over medium heat, just until cooked.  It will cook a little more later.  Remove from pan.  Throw in the vegetables and stir-fry for until crisp tender, about 5-10 mins., depending on how tender you like your vegetables.
Add the chicken back to the pan, mix.  Add the sauce, cook until it thickens. Serve over hot rice.