Full Plate Chicken Stir-Fry

This is a simple recipe I came up with on my own. I like to eat healthy when I can and this has been one of my favorites for the past couple months. You're going to need a wok or at least a large frying pan and then any type of utensil you want to use to stir it. This will serve 4 people. Here's the ingredients you're going to need:

• 32 oz of boneless skinless Chicken Tenderloins

• 4 cups of Sweet Corn

• 1/2 of a Large Red Bell Pepper (sweet pepper)

• 1/2 of a Large Green Bell Pepper

• 1/2 of a Large Yellow Bell Pepper

• 1 Whole Medium Onion (white)

• 2 Cups of Mushrooms

• 8 Tablespoons of White Wine (cooking or drinking wine, it's up to you)

• 4 Cups of Frozen Stir-fry Vegetables

• Pepper to taste

Alright to start you'll want to defrost the chicken tenders, unless you bought them fresh. You can usually get these in big bags at your grocery store. Once it's defrosted you can cut it into bite size chunks and put it in your wok or frying pan. You don't need any extra juices, just the chicken.

Then you'll want to measure out your cups of sweet corn. I usually just use canned corn, but you can use fresh corn cut off the cob if you like. Any of the canned items can be substituted for fresh. It'll taste better and have less sodium. There's about 1 and 3/4 cups of corn in a can. Drain off the juice, if you use canned, and then put your 4 cups of corn in your pan.

Get out your three peppers, make sure to take off the sticker from the outside, and cut them all in half. Cut off the lighter colored inside parts and make sure there's no seeds left stuck to the inside. If you use the top part, cut out the stem section. You'll just want to dice these into small peices. I usually cut them in half again, cut them into slices and then chop them up from there. Once that's done you can put all of that in your pan.

Take out your onion and cut off the top part and take off the outer layer of skin. Then chop it up into small peices and put it in your pan.

Get out your mushrooms. For these I usually use canned ones too (peices & stems), but you can use fresh. If you use canned ones, drain off the juice and measure out how much you need and put them in the pan. If you use fresh ones you'll need to slice them up and then put them in the pan.

Next you'll want to get out your frozen stir-fry vegetables. If you want you can add your own fresh vegetables, the bag I have has: broccoli, carrots, onions, red peppers, celery, water chestnuts and mushrooms. If you opt to use the frozen vegetables, just measure them out and put them right in your pan. There's no need to defrost them. Otherwise, you'll need to cut up all your vegetables before you can put them in.

Now you can measure out your white wine and put it in the pan too. If you want this to be low-sodium then it'd probably be best not to use a cooking wine, unless the sodium content is low in it. But, I've had a number or people tell me that they prefer to use a drinking wine because of the poor taste of a cooking wine. Then I like to give it all a light dusting with some black pepper for some added flavor.

Hopefully this all fits in your pan. If it's a close fit, don't worry as it heats up it'll shrink up in size. Now before you start just stir it up some to mix everything together. I usually cook it on high because I like it to cook fast, but you don't have to keep it this high. If you're busy and won't be watching it as much then you need a lower heat.

Now guess what you have to do to your stir-fry? You have to..... stir it! Just stir it every once and a while so everything gets mixed up and a chance to get evenly heated. If it's really close to overflowing at first and you can't stir it much, just cover it for a while on a lower heat and let the steam defrost/cook everything for a bit. Then you can uncover it and stir away!

You'll notice as the vegetables defrost and as the chicken cooks that you'll have some extra juices to go with the white wine. This is what I used to gauge when it's done. Just keep stirring it every minute or so and when you notice that there's not a lot of juices left that's a good sign that it's ready. Just make sure that there's no peices of uncooked chicken.

Now serve it up and let me know how you liked it. This is all you'll have to cook for a whole meal! Just add a tall glass of cold water and you're set. I eat it every week myself. Interested in how healthy this meal is? Well here's what you'll be getting per serving:

• 457 Calories

• 52 grams of Protein

• 3 grams of Fat

• 42 grams of Carbohydrates

Want to make this more low carb? Then only use 2 Cups of Sweet Corn. That would make each serving 367 calories, 50 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat and 28 grams of carbs. If you use a lot of your own fresh ingredients instead of canned then you can go to the USDA National Nutrient Database and look up the nutritional data for each ingredient.

I hope you like it! For more, and probably better tasting, recipes you can check out this Chinese Cookbook; it's got hundreds of healthy recipes in it. Or you can check out Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, I just got this the other day. Tom Venuto let's you in on nutrition secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models. He was down to 3.7% body fat at one point! I need to go finish reading.