Joybee, What's for Dinner? : Ginger

Monday, August 17, 2015

Ginger Lime Chia Water

Water sweetened with ginger simple syrup, brightened with a touch of lime juice, and extra nutrition added with chia seeds.

Chia seeds have been a popular health food fad for a while now. It's no wonder why. They are a great source of fiber, protein, omega-3s, and other nutrients and antioxidants while being low in calories. These seeds are tiny and a great way to add health benefits to many recipes. This is one of my favorite ways to add some extra fiber to my diet.

Chia seeds are a great source of fiber, protein, and omega-3s. [Tweet this]

Usually, I add a scoop of chia to about 6-8 ounces of water or coconut water and quickly chug it down after a workout. Other than that, I mostly just drink plain water and try to get my 8 glasses a day (64 ounces or about 2 liters) but, occasionally, I like to have something different. Flavored simple syrups are a great way to flavor water and they are also great in cocktails. You can control the sweetness and the strength of flavor. If I'm going to add sugar to my water, I might as well add some nutrients from chia seeds too. It's so much better than buying and drinking sodas (I don't like carbonation but if you do add flavored simple syrup to soda water).

I try to get my 8 glasses (of water) a day. [Tweet this]

I often have fresh ginger laying around. It's easy and inexpensive to buy here and I often use if for cooking. I had some leftover so I decided to use it for Ginger Simple Syrup. I had about 1/2 a cup of peeled ginger slices that I added to 1 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar. Then heated the mixture until the sugar dissolved, covered it and let the ginger steep in the water until it cooled. This made a very sweet simple syrup with the spicy bite of ginger. Just a little bit of this simple syrup will go a long way. If you want even more ginger flavor with less sweetness use a 1:1 sugar to water ratio (with the same amount of ginger--then you can use more syrup imparting more flavor).

A little bit of Ginger Simple Syrup goes a long way. [Tweet this]

Ginger Lime Chia Water

Ingredients:

12 oz water
*Ginger Simple Syrup to taste
1 Tbsp chia seeds
Lime wedge

Fill a glass with about 12 ounces of cold water. Stir in some ginger simple syrup to your taste. Then pour in up to 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and stir thoroughly. Refrigerate or just let set for about 5-15 minutes to allow the chia seeds to soften. Squeeze in some fresh lime juice before drinking or serving. Stir as you drink to keep the chia seeds afloat. You can add ice if you like I just prefer the temperature of beverages right out of the fridge.

Stir, drink, and enjoy.

For more drinks check out:

How to Make Cold Brewed Tea

Homemade Bloody Mary Mix

Dillinger Cocktail with St. Germain

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Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

Yum

A simple chicken stir fry with a bite, from fresh ginger.

(Updated 1/18/16 pin-able image, minor editing, tweet-ables, and similar posts)

Store-bought rotisserie chicken is awesome. It's cheaper (at least here) than buying raw chicken and cooking it yourself. Not to mention it tastes amazing. I know eating the skin is frowned upon but it's so good and crispy I always eat a bit of it. For the two of us (my hubs and I), we can usually get a good 5 meals or more out of one chicken. Usually, the first night or two we just eat plain chicken, with whatever sides we feel like making, then I pick as much meat as possible from the carcass and save it for other meals (the carcass can be used for chicken stock too). This stir fry is one way I used some of the leftover rotisserie chicken.

Use #leftoverrotisseriechicken in Ginger Chicken #StirFry [Tweet this]

I didn't want to make just a plain chicken stir fry (what would I blog about if I didn't experiment and try something new) and I had a large piece of ginger root so I thought I'd use it. I always add some ginger to most of my stir fries and I love the kind of sweet and spicy flavor it gives.

Spice up #chickenstirfry w/ #Ginger Chicken Stir Fry [Tweet this]

Growing up the only time I was used to eating ginger was in baked goods and always the ground ginger. Now, I don't know what I would do without fresh ginger root on hand. It's very prevalent in the Chinatown markets I frequent, and it's inexpensive so I don't mind grabbing a rather large piece. I love having fresh ginger in the house because it can be used in many recipes from stir fries to baked goods and even beverages (try it in an orange juice smoothie for a little kick). Since I had plenty of ginger I thought I'd use lots of it to lend the stir fry a nice spiciness. As usual, I used minced ginger and garlic (to me these are the main components of a good stir fry) and I wanted to make sure it was extra gingery so I cut some small matchsticks of ginger to toss with the veggies. I wasn't sure how that would work but it was great. The bigger pieces of ginger gave a nice texture and more of a gingery bite. Delicious. Oh, and ginger has many nutrition and health benefits (just Google it).

#Ginger has many #healthbenifits | Ginger Chicken Stir Fry [Tweet this]

Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

Cook time: about 20 minutes
Servings: 4

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp ginger, minced
1 Tbsp garlic, minced
dash of sesame oil
1 tsp chili oil
1 Thai chili, minced (optional)
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp rice wine
1-2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken

1-2 Tbsp high heat oil
about 40 1/2 inch long matchsticks of fresh ginger
2 carrots, julienned
1 onion, chopped
1 head of broccoli, florets
1 cup frozen peas

Mix together the first 8 ingredients, pour over the chicken in a sealable container (or zipper bag), and refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight.

Heat a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Pour in the oil then add the ginger and vegetables (about 5 cups of veggies total any combination would be fine). Stir fry until vegetables are tender to your liking. Then pour in the marinade and chicken. Mix and stir until heated through then remove from heat.

Serve hot over rice and garnish with chopped green onions.

Makes about 4 servings.

Enjoy.