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Plan Z Phase: This is a Z2 (ZReduction) recipe. Chinese food is the hardest of the ethnic foods to convert for Plan Z. As you can’t have rice or eggrolls. So many of the ingredients in many of the Chinese dishes contain too many carbs. So it’s challenge. I took on this challenge and converted what I think is probably the hardest Chinese dish. Sweet and sour pork. Believe me when I tell you that this does taste sweet along with the sour. Dieter Jeff exclaimed that this could not possibly be diet food! He was one of my taste testers. Well, Jeff… It’s diet food. Plan Z diet food.

Servings: Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 24 oz of skinless chicken breast cut into 1” chunks. This will probably be about 3 normal chicken breast pieces
• olive oil spray
• grated sea salt and pepper
• 1 medium onion cut into six wedges
• 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green pepper cut into 1” chunks
• 1 cup of chicken stock/broth
• ¼ cup plus 2 Tbl of rice vinegar
• 12 oz can of mandarin orange segments, drained and rinsed to get off the sugar water
• 3 tsp of Truvia
• ¼ cup of tomato sauce from a can is fine
• 2 Tbl of corn starch dissolved in 1 cup of water
• 10 cherry tomatoes cut in half

Instructions:

The easiest way to do this dish is to use 2 large sauté pans. If you don’t have two you’ll have to do it in two stages. *

Take the first pan and spray lightly with olive oil. Put in the chicken chunks and begin to cook them on medium high. You want them to get slightly browned on the edges while the center cooks, too. Toss them around once in a while as they cook. Cook until no pink remains in the middle. You can cut one to check. This won’t take more than 10 minutes or so.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

While that is happening you can take out another large sauté pan.  Spray with oil and put in the peppers and onions. Cook them on medium – medium-high so they begin to loosen up. You are not trying to brown them and you’re not trying to make them mushy. Just make them looser so they are hot and cooked but still have a little bite to them. This will take about 5 minutes. When this is done, add the vinegar and the broth. Bring to a boil. Add the Truvia and the tomato sauce. Stir this up so the tomato melts into the sauce and there are no lumps.  You should have it all bubbling, gently.

Now add the cornstarch mixed with water. This is your thickener. Add the mandarin oranges and stir. Gently stir constantly on medium high until the sauce begins to bubble and gel — and get that glossy color you want with sweet and sour chicken. Some of the mandarin oranges will break up and become some of the sauce. Some will remain whole.  As soon as it begins to thicken, turn it down. Add the cherry tomatoes and the chicken bits. All you want to do is heat the tomatoes and make sure the chicken gets hot if it cooled down.

I serve this in a bowl and just sit and eat it watching TV. Big YUM. Serving size 1-1/2 cups. This is your protein and your veggies. This is also a portion of your fruit. Factor in how many oranges you have in your serving and subtract that from your remaining dessert option.

*Note: If you are doing this with one pan you will cook the chicken first, wipe out the pan and then cook the veggie part and combine the two at the end.

Enjoy!

Cheers,