Pad Thai

I absolutely love pad thai and have not been able to find a recipe that tastes like what I find at restaurants. The sauce always ends up tasting too much like peanut butter, but not this recipe! It tastes just like the pad thai at Pei Wei or P.F. Chang's. A couple things you need to know:

1. The recipe calls for rice noodles. These can be found at almost any grocery store and are found in the Asian aisle. Do NOT cook them like regular pasta noodles or they will turn to mush. They simply need to be put in warm water and will finish cooking in the skillet.
2.  If desperate, using angel hair pasta will work fine. Just cook the noodles according to the package and then add to skillet.

Ingredients:

Update

• 8 oz rice noodles
• 3 - 4 garlic cloves (minced)
• 2 green onions
• 6 sliced mushrooms
• 1 chicken breast thinly sliced

Sauce Ingredients (I loved the sauce so much I doubled it!)

• ½ cup chicken stock
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 -3 tablespoons natural-style peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon garlic chili sauce

Directions:

1. Place noodles into a big bowl of warm water. Let soak while you work on the rest.
2.  Place 1Tbsp olive oil or butter in large skillet over medium - high heat. Melt and then add chicken. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Add garlic and other veggies. Continue sauteing until soft.
3. While sauteing, stir together vegetable stock, soy sauce, peanut butter, honey, ginger, coriander, red pepper flakes in a small sauce pan.
4. Cook over medium heat until peanut butter and honey melt and sauce is heated through.
5. Add noodles to stir fried veggies and meat in skillet until soft. Add sauce and mix thoroughly.

Banana Bread

This is my mom's recipe for banana bread and I have great memories of her making it when I was younger. The smell alone will make you seem like an awesome cook!

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup sour milk (Just add 1 tsp vinegar to milk)
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 2 cups flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cream together shortening and sugar
3. Add eggs, milk and bananas
4. In a separate bowl, mix baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour
5. Slowly combine dry ingredients into banana mixture.
6. Use extra shortening to grease bread pan and dust with flour
7. Pour batter into pan
8. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out of the middle clean