An update on my Spoonie Journey as of late:
Originally, this post had an intro a few pages long ranting and raving about having a new cardiologist that has made it obvious he doesn’t know much about dysautonomia. (This is the doctor #12 since I started having symptoms two years ago.) Ultimately, the point was that I’ve been having chest pains, pretty regularly. Not severe ones, but they do sometimes radiate into my left arm, so I wanted to get it checked out. The new cardio ran some tests and kind of intimated that he doesn’t agree with my diagnosis because “I don’t display the classic symptoms.” Ie: I’ve been doing much better and can almost always stand without passing out.
This colossal ignorant plunk has created a series of waves disrupting a whole slew of medical paperwork that affects a lot of different facets to my life, including medical accommodations for long flights, standardized testing for the GRE, and weird, tiny, insignificant details like my Veterans Association profile. Basically my whole life. No biggie.
I can rant for several paragraphs about how the medical community has been a royal pain on this journey of mine. There are a lot of blessed saints that serve in the medical world, but they are few and far between, and if I have to go into another doctor’s office and meet another stranger for the first time half naked, just for them to basically tell me they think I’m bonkers, I might just throw in the towel completely and start visiting huts with nature healers and pipes full of nefarious substances.
Having POTS is one of the areas of my life that is supposed to be forcing me to be brave. To say I’m not feeling well, I feel like garbage, no, I don’t want to do that it’s not worth my spoons, or – the big one – you, Dr. Whats-It are a jerk-faced dumb butt and I deserve better. Unfortunately/ Fortunately/ Depends-on-your-personal-approach-to-medical-professionalism, I did not say that. Instead, I walked outside, got in my car, and had an anxiety-induced episode while I hyperventilated to my husband’s voicemail.
Summary: I’m over it.
Post-Script: I’m not over it, and I need comfort food. STAT.
Que the stage-left entrance of the beloved guilty comfort food pleasure of junky, deep-fried and slathered in a sticky probably mostly sugar sauce, American-ized Chinese food.
Confession: I winged this recipe for the first time a few weeks ago. Probably around the time that this cardiologist came clean and admitted he didn’t know much about dysautonomia, and wanted me to find a GP to send me to a gastro specialist and electrosomething person. So, truth be told, this spot of bravery cooking is not particularly recent.
I pretty close to never actually cook a recipe in its full, guilty, deep fried flour caked nonsense. The birth of this not-so-deep-fried baby was brought about through perusing some paleo, clean, and downright dirty recipes, and then kinda tossing some stuff together that sounded good and praying it was edible. I may or may not have been stuffing my face with Enjoy Life Chocolate Morsels at the time.
We’ll never really know.
Thankfully, I can have brilliant moments, and this was one of them. (I will not credit the chocolate for my stroke of brilliance – this is mine, dammit!)
Also, for the sake of clarification, I doubled this recipe in the pics so we’d have enough for lunch all week, about six adult meals worth, given that one of those adults is an active male who burns close to 4,000 calories a day. (Can’t keep him fed, gave up trying!)
(I’m working on coding the below recipe using CSS and Bootstrap – stay tuned!)
Chicken:
1 lb Chicken Breast (Thighs may even be better!) – cut into bite size pieces
3/4 c. Flour – I use tapioca, coconut, and whole wheat in equal proportions
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbs arrowroot starch (or cornstarch)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven spice blend) or red pepper
Cooking oil – sesame, coconut, or olive, though keep those smoke points in mind
Sauce:
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 c. Orange juice
1/2 c. Soy sauce
3 tbs water
1 tsp Rice Vinegar
Mix the sauce up in a large measuring cup and set aside for the flavors to get all familiar with one another.
Toss the dry goods in a large, gallon-size baggie or glass bowl if you’re more environmentally responsible and less dirty-dish averse than me, then top it with the chicken. Shake, rattle, and roll until well covered. You’ll have some extra powder – that’s good – you’ll use it.
Heat cooking oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Cook chicken in batches in a single layer, turning when browned. Should take about two batches, give or take. Make sure all the outsides are browned, but don’t worry too much about the chicken being cooked all the way through just yet. Remove it all from the pan into a bowl or plate and stick it in the microwave for safe keeping. DON’T TEST ONE – THEY’RE NOT DONE YET!
Lower the heat to med-low and scrape up any burnt bits. Sprinkle in roughly two tablespoons of remaining flour mixture and stir as it cooks. It’ll start getting a golden color, this is when you’ll slowly pour in your sauce mixture, stirring constantly.
Continue to stir your sauce mixture constantly. The flour will eventually dissolve into the liquid, and your sauce will start to thicken in big gross globs at the bottom of the pan. Stir it into the liquid on top. If it starts getting too thick, cut it with chicken broth or water. If it’s not thick enough, you can make a slurry of equal parts arrowroot and water, but go easy on this. Arrowroot powder works slowly, and then all at once.
Toss the chicken back in and stir to coat. You’re gonna leave this mess here, stirring occasionally, while you warm up some cauliflower rice, steam some broccoli, set the table, pour the drinks. This step is really just to make sure the chicken is cooked through completely, so find a big chunk and cut into it, make sure all the pink is gone, then serve over brown rice or caulirice with some steamed broccoli or sautéed green beans. Sprinkle with some more togarashi if you like the heat, or maybe some sesame seeds. Or find a local asian market and invest in some pickles. I recommend fukujinsuke (pickled radish and eggplant). Its beautiful and adds a sweet and sour snap!
Serve with a smirk because you’re a badass.
