Mini-update & Teriyaki Chicken Salad Recipe

I was just re-reading some of my last posts and noticed the past few recipes I posted were quite well-received!  I loved all your comments and that some of you tried the recipes and even reported back!  Thanks for the motivation to keep blogging!  

We've had a lovely past few weeks - sprinkled with a dab of stress.   Since we spoke last some friends of ours from Saipan came to visit.  Their 6 days here were absolutely wonderful for us.  Of cours we have made friends on the island, but there just isn't anything like friendly faces who travel so many miles just to see US.  We LOVED having T&S here and are hoping to head their way next year!!  

Also since we spoke last, Dozer became a VERY sick little kitty and underwent quite a bit of testing as we tried to figure out what was wrong.  The short version of a very long story - he quit eating & drinking completely for 4 days... he had absolutely no desire for ANY kind of food.  After putting him under anesthetic, inserting an IV, multiple CT scans, a GI test, an ultrasound and lots of drugs he is better.  :-) It seems something had been blocking food from getting from his stomach to his digestive tract.  After day 8 of no eating or drinking, we had made the decision that it would have to be up to him whether he'd live or not.  Since there is not a veterinarian on island (only a vet tech), our ONLY option was to put him on a plane to Hawaii to see a surgeon who could perform the endoscopic surgery needed to remove what was blocking his stomach... and mind you that was WAY more pennies than we have left in our wallet.  So - we medicated him heavily with drugs that would give him the munchies... cleaned up lots of vomit, and on day 9 he started showing interest in food again.  We're about 2 weeks into the entire ordeal now, and he's finally eating mostly normally again and drinking on his own.  He lost about 25% of his body weight, but I have no doubts he'll find it again.  

Tomorrow we're eagerly awaiting the arrival of another friend, one of our ministry workers who will spend a few nights with us!!  P.C. arrives tomorrow night (our Wednesday) and catches a flight to Hawaii on Friday evening.  So it's  quick trip, but we're glad for any time we'll get to spend with her!!

Now, more food talk... :)

One of my very favorite recipes that I typically whip up once a week is a super EASY Teriyaki Chicken Salad.  It's really not a recipe - rather, it's all in my head (the Dr. says this too!), but I'll try my best to get it down in writing and maybe you can replicate a tasty version also.  :-)

Teriyaki Chicken Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (thawed)
1/4 Cup Teriyaki Marinade (or more if you prefer)

1 Package Coleslaw Mix Salad
1/2 Package Ramen Noodles, crushed (discard the seasoning)
1 Large Bunch of Grapes, washed and cut in 1/2's
1 Avocado, sliced

1 Package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix
1/2 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream + 1/2 Cup Water (or 1 Cup Skim Milk if you're health-conscious, not taste-conscious)
1 Cup Best Foods (or Hellman's if you're on the EC) Mayonnaise

1.  Cut the chicken breasts up into bite-size pieces.
2.  Cook the chicken in the teriyaki marinade on your stove-top until chicken is fully cooked.
3.  Toss coleslaw mix with crushed ramen noodles and grapes in a medium bowl.
4.  Toss in cooked chicken and any extra marinade with coleslaw mixture.  
5.  Top with avocado slices and serve with ranch dressing on the side.

DELISH!

If you make more than enough for one meal, I'd recommend not mixing in the ramen noodles with the entire salad and instead adding them to your individual salad servings.  That way, the noodles won't be soggy when you serve it again tomorrow... and believe me, you will DEFINITELY want some tomorrow... it's FANTASTIC as leftovers.

(please excuse my spelling errors - my eyeballs are fuzzy tonight!)

Octopus!

Folks, I just cannot, NOT share this picture.  

I didn't even cheat and compromise the photo quality (by compressing the photo size) so that it would upload faster.  It took all of 2 1/2 hours last night on our dial-up connection to upload!!  I took it on a shore dive yesterday; we were kicking out to a buoy which we would then descend along to our destination and Peter spotted this octopus.  We followed him for a few minutes, mesmerized by his color-changing, texture-changing abilities, and snapped MANY photos.  This one was my favorite!  

Peter and I just found some statistics on our computer dive logs that made me smile.  According to my computer I've sucked 91 thousand PSI of air since I started diving and Peter has sucked 86 thousand PSI.  

We're sure breathing a lot of air!! Hope there's enough for the rest of you! :-)

Baking Diaries: Perfect Banana Bread

Hi friends!  I recently stumbled across a recipe at the blog (I am Baker) titled Perfect Banana Bread.  I had my doubts.  I had made some banana bread a few weeks ago that was pretty stinkin' good.  However, I had two and 1/2 VERY ripe bananas that needed to be used and I figured I best prove whether this truly was the Perfect Banana Bread.  

It WAS.  It IS.  Perfect. 

You must try it.  You won't believe it doesn't call for one lick of butter.  You won't believe it has yogurt in it.  You won't believe how unbelievably delicious it is.

I'm quickly learning that my oven does not bake at the temperature it SAYS it is baking at.  This recipe requests a "325* preheated oven".  Hah.  I have a oven thermometer in mine right now and the hottest it's getting is 154*.  However, I'll have you know, 154* will still bake banana bread, it just takes about 2 hours.  :-) 

Finally, the recipe.  Full credit for this fantastic loaf of goodness goes to i.am.baker!

Perfect Banana Bread

2 eggs

1/3 cup vanilla yogurt

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup ripe mashed bananas

1 ½ cups white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 ¾  cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½  tsp salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare chosen pan.  (I used a dark, non-stick large loaf pan)

Blend together the eggs, yogurt, oil, extract and bananas in mixer with low speed.

Add in sugars and fully incorporate.  Then add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until just combined.

Pour into prepared pan and bake 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

(I would start checking your banana bread at 45 minutes.  The time to bake just depends on the accuracy of your oven.  Like I mentioned before, mine took two hours... hmm, I wonder if that contributed to the moistness of the bread?  I suppose that would be the equivalent of baking it in a slow cooker?!)

So, here are the ways I deviated from the recipe, for what it's worth:
-  I used 2 1/2 bananas (1/2 of the 3rd was moldy...) which equated to more like a cup and 1/2.  I didn't measure, but that's about what it looked like.
-  I didn't have vanilla yogurt so instead I used fat free Oikos plain yogurt.  Win-win - it's better for you and the bread still was delicious!  Oh, I also guestimated on this measurement - I'm a fan of less is more in the dirty dishes department, and yogurt doesn't come in 1/3 cup sizes.  At least not on Kwaj.  :-)

I hope you try it, and if so, please let me know if you too agree it's the Perfect Banana Bread!

Another bonus:  If you measure like I do, it only gets one bowl, one measuring cup, one measuring spoon and a bread pan dirty!  My kind of baking!