Friday: Terre Haute Chick-fil-A, Future-Me Chicken & a 20-Minute Stir-Fry

Got up this morning, packed everything up and hit the road for home.

But there was one very important job before we left the hotel:

Change the cooler ice one more time.

At this point, that cooler had been traveling with us for a couple of days, and I am not playing around with food safety. Fresh ice went into the gallon bags, everything got packed back up nice and cold, and we were officially on our way.

Lunch in Terre Haute

We needed somewhere to stop for lunch, and funny enough, Terre Haute, Indiana, ended up being the perfect stopping point.

I went to school in Terre Haute, so it was kind of fun to be back there, even if this particular visit was mostly just a Chick-fil-A stop.

Chick-fil-A isn’t necessarily my favorite restaurant, but it’s a pretty reliable road-trip lunch for me.

My usual order is the Southwest salad with grilled chicken nuggets, and I swap the creamy salsa dressing for their vinaigrette.

Is it the most exciting lunch in the world?

No.

But it’s a decent road-trip meal, and it gets me through until we get home.

Today, though, I also decided to get French fries.

Excellent decision.

Chick-fil-A fries can be hit or miss for me because sometimes they’re a little soft and soggy. These were crispy and saltyand exactly what I wanted.

I also ate some of the food in the cooler on the way home….apples, cucumbers, the rest of the summer sausage, etc.

And Then We Got Home to Dinner Already Half Done

This is where Tuesday’s cooking paid off.

Before we left town, I grilled that big batch of Costco chicken breasts.

We used some of the chicken for the trip, some for other meals, and I intentionally saved enough in the back of the refrigerator for tonight.

So after driving home all day, I didn’t walk into the kitchen and have to deal with raw chicken.

The protein for dinner was already cooked.

All I had to do was slice it.

This is exactly why I like my rolling three-day system. I cooked the chicken Tuesday night knowing I wanted to use the remaining portion Friday. It gave me several days to use it in different ways, and tonight it turned into a very easy post-travel dinner.

My Quick Stir-Fry Formula

This is one of my favorite ways to turn already-cooked protein + frozen vegetables into a completely different dinner.

I started with one package of frozen stir-fry vegetables from Walmart.

Get a big pan really hot, add a little olive oil and dump the vegetables in straight from frozen.

No thawing.

Just sauté them until they’ve defrosted and heated through.

Then add your sliced cooked chicken.

Meanwhile, I mixed up my quick stir-fry sauce.

I don’t really measure this, but the basic formula is:

Equal-ish parts chicken broth and liquid aminos, plus honey, ginger, garlic powder, pepper, sesame oil and a splash of vinegar.

I normally use rice wine vinegar, but apparently we are out.

So I used apple cider vinegar.

This is an Ingredient Household. We adapt.

Add a good scoop of cornstarch and whisk everything together really well before pouring it into the hot pan.

And then, because Chris loves them, I added a drained can of water chestnuts.

I remain unconvinced that water chestnuts actually taste like anything.

Apparently we’re just here for the crunch.

Once the sauce hits the hot pan, let it come up to a bubble. As soon as that happens, the cornstarch starts thickening everything, and within a couple of minutes you’ve got that glossy sauce coating the chicken and vegetables.

Dinner.

One Extra Pan Makes It Adaptable

I have a couple of kids who don’t like the stir-fry sauce.

That’s fine.

I set aside some of the grilled chicken and gently warmed it in a separate pan with a little chicken broth and butter.

Yes, it’s one more pan to wash.

But I’m also not making an entirely separate dinner.

For the starch, I made the rice ramen noodles I buy at Costco. I cooked about six blocks for our family, and they only take about six minutes.

Then I sliced some fresh peppers for the kids who didn’t want the stir-fry vegetables.

So dinner could go one of two ways:

Stir-fry people: rice ramen noodles with chicken, vegetables, water chestnuts and sauce.

Not-stir-fry people: rice ramen noodles, plain chicken and fresh peppers.

Same basic ingredients.

Same dinner.

Everybody gets a plate they’ll actually eat.

This Is Why I Cook Before I Travel

And this is probably my favorite part of tonight’s dinner.

I didn’t meal prep an entire Friday-night meal before leaving town.

I just cooked one useful ingredient.

Chicken.

Tuesday’s grilled chicken became travel food, helped with other meals and then waited in the refrigerator for us to come home.

Tonight, one bag of frozen vegetables, a six-minute noodle and a quick sauce turned it into dinner.

That’s my kind of meal prep.

And Apparently Candy Corn Nerds Are Good?

One final important discovery from the drive home.

We stopped for gas, I ran inside and naturally came back out with candy.

I found candy corn Nerds.

I was skeptical.

They’re surprisingly good.

So there you go.

We made it home, the cooler did its job, Tuesday’s chicken became Friday’s dinner, and after two trips in one week, I am very ready to stay home for a while.