General Sun Tzu's Chicken or NotChicken. He flanked Tso with the help of Sun Pin.

I made some General's Tofu, or if it was chicken, jeung bau gei kau the other day. It wasn't chicken as my Yeti wife does not eat the fowl nor the flesh, except for fishes and other sea-sonal things. I did some research, or rather searches on Google which substitutes for research for the lazy, into what is typically called General Tso (or other spelling variants such as Zuo) chicken dishes, and I didn't like what I saw. My favorite version of this Americanized Hunan dish had exhibited citrus floral scents, had that unami element that is often missing, and was not sickly sweet with too much sugar. It was also fairly spicy and flecked with lightly toasted sesame seeds. I tried to reproduce that and it was fairly successful.

Purists may think that this is just a version of orange chicken, but that traditionally has preserved orange peel, is based on a chili sauce, and is not sweet. This was one of the few experiments that I tried when the Yeti wife was home instead of trying it out by myself first and then reproducing a more successful version later.

Technique:
First prep the sauce ingredients but do not cook or add to the wok. Then prep and cook the chicken or tofu. I recommend using 12-16 ounces of protein for the amount of sauce this makes. Reserve the chicken or tofu, prepare the sauce, and toss the cooked protein in the finished sauce. I love to serve this with crisp, steamed vegetables tossed with lemon juice and a pinch of salt such as broccoli, asparagus, green beans, or sliced root vegetables.

General Tzu's flanking manuver sauce
Mix thoroughly in a bowl:
1 tablespoon hoisin
juice of 2 large oranges or about 1/4 cup of good orange juice
1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, crushed or minced
1 tablespoon soy sauce or, preferably, tamari
1 teaspoon fresh chopped ginger or ginger powder
1 teaspoon water
1/4 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
(optional if want additional heat) a few dashes of vinegar-based hot sauce, such as Tabasco or Durkee

have handy, but not mixed together:
about 4-6 dried pepper pods or fresh Thai chilies
1 heaping teaspoon of sesame seeds
2 teaspoons of canola oil or peanut oil
1 green onion or scallion, diced pretty thin (optional)
1 teaspoon of corn starch slurried in about 1/4 cup of cold water

Get everything else ready as once the sauce is cooked the dish is basically finished:
Cook some rice. I recommend my sushi rice or jasmine rice (earlier posting). Prep and have your veggies cooked and ready.
Cook your chicken or tofu as you like. I like to cut the protein into small pieces and then lightly bread the pieces and shallow-fry until golden brown.
Set the cooked protein off to the side until sauce is ready.

Add the canola oil and pepper pods to your wok over medium high heat. Allow the pods to flavor the oil. This takes only a few minutes. If you want spicier General Tzu, leave the peppers in at this point. If you want milder Tzu, take the peppers out or don't use them at all. Add the sesame seeds, but be careful as they will start to pop and dance and may exit the wok at a good velocity. As soon as you hear the first few pops, add your hoisin mixture and stir through. Bring this mixture to a boil and slowly add a few dribbles of the corn starch slurry until just before your desired thickness. Stop adding the slurry early (you may need to add a touch of plain water if you get a bit thicker than desired) as adding the protein back in usually causes the sauce to thicken a little more.

Toss your chicken or tofu into the sauce, stir through, and serve over rice. See, wasn't that easy? And it's better than those sugar-and-vinegar sauces you'd normally see Tso eating. Sun Tzu and Sun Pin pity poor Tso T'sung-T'ang's complexity-free and not as good chickeny concoction!

Serves about 2 Yetis, or 4 people with the veggies included, or 2 people with nice and well-microwaved leftovers for lunch the next day.

Three rice stuffing

This is one of the things I make as a holiday dinner dish. It has lots of good colors, those wonderful autumn and winter cooking aromas, and it tastes really good. You can use either sausage, soy sausage (the kind that comes in tubes, not patties nor link style), or leave that part out and just add an additional pinch of salt, pinch of slightly crushed or bruised fennel seed, and extra pinch of sage or a couple of fresh sage leaves. And this also makes for amazing leftovers.

A total of three cups of cooked rice. I usually use 1 cup cooked brown rice, 1 cup cooked wild rice and 1 cup cooked long grain white rice. You can use any combination you like.
1 large red or yellow bell pepper, medium dice (sometimes I add a jalapeño or other hot pepper for some heat. Yetis may live in the cold, but we like heat in our food!)
½ medium onion, small dice or about 4-5 shallots, small dice
1 clove garlic, minced or ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
2 ribs celery, small dice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
pinch dried sage
pinch thyme
pinch rosemary
2-3 fennel seeds
a few pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup vegetable or poultry stock
chopped toasted walnuts (optional)
1/4 pound of good soy sausage (see note above) or 1/4 pound of good, easily crumbled sausage (optional - I like Lightlife's Gimme Lean soy Sausage Style product or Bob Evans' original flavor or sage roll sausage for this)

Heat a large, heavy bottomed skillet, preferably cast iron, over high heat with the vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, carefully add the soy sausage or traditional sausage in small pieces and stir frequently. If you use soy sausage, you will probably need to add an additional tablespoon of vegetable oil. Cook the sausage product through and then remove the sausage from the pan. Pour out most of the oil from the skillet, keeping about 1 tablespoon in the pan.

Return the pan to the heat, and add the celery, peppers, and onion. Reduce the heat to medium high and sauté the celery, bell pepper and onion until soft and the onion is partially translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Turn heat back up to high, add all spices, herbs, and salt and pepper and any optional ingredients, but not the cooked rice. Stir through on high heat for about 30 seconds. Add the stock and deglaze the pan.

Turn heat down to low or medium. Add cooked rice. Warm through and serve.

Serves 1-2 Yeti or 4-6 people as a side dish.

Soyballs! Well, you'll see when you read the post.

This is something I make when my vegetarian yeti wife is looking for either pasta and meatballs or meatball sandwiches. Mmm, these are fantastic meatball sandwiches. I think I'm going to go have a sandwich right now. I like them with provolone and under the broiler for just a minute.

Required ingredients (it's a short list, isn't it?):
4 vegan Boca Burger patties at room temperature. If you like some other sort of soy based veggie burger go ahead and try it at your own risk. I haven't. Yetis find something they like and stick with it. Don't use a crumble soy product - it won't work.

Optional:
1 to 2 eggs depending on other dry ingredients whatever else you normally put in meatballs. The eggs will help the other ingredients bind with the soy patties.
¼ cup finely diced onion
2-3 cloves minced garlic or ½ teaspoon garlic powder
2 dashes of salt
½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon dry prepared mustard
2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce
If you want to use soup mix, try to use one that’s low sodium or these turn out way too salty.
Sometimes I put in a sprinkle of breadcrumbs, or I replace the ketchup and mustard with salsa.
Pasta sauce of your choice and 1 pound of pasta (spaghetti or angel hair)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place ingredients in large bowl. Mix well with hands. Lightly grease a large iron skillet or baking tray. Take 1 tablespoon portions of the mix and form into balls. If you use your hands to form the balls it is easier if you put some oil or water on your hands first. The balls won't stick to your hands as much.

Place the soy balls in an oven-proof skillet about an inch apart. Bake in oven 40 minutes. Balls are done if tops are not mushy when pushed on lightly with a spoon. They should look and feel like meatballs. If you have one of those fancy thermometer type devices, you're looking for an internal temperature around 220F. Some egg or liquid may ooze out; this may be added to the pasta sauce. Mix with pasta and sauce or use in place of meatballs in another recipe such as sliced on a pizza. Trust me, this works. Or fry them. Etc. Use your imagination.

Serves 1 Yeti with leftovers for a small sandwich, or serves 3-4 people with pasta, or 2 hungry college students as meatball sandwiches.