Have I mentioned yet that I live near a Wegmans?  It’s a grocery store that has some of the specialty items stocked at Whole Foods, some value items like you’d find at Trader Joe’s, and a full liquor store.  Plus a hot and cold food bar that makes a great lunch or dinner.

Wegmans has a seasonal magazine called “Menu”, with recipes that use ingredients you’ll find at the store.  They’re designed to be quick, convenient, and health oriented.  I decided to put their Sesame Chicken with Lo Mein recipe to the test.

List in hand, I walked into Wegmans.  To be fair, I am still not very familiar with the store layout.  It took a bit of time for me to find all the products I needed.  Eventually I was able to round up the following: cleaned and cut green beans, cleaned and cut Asian slaw, Teriyaki seasoned chicken thighs, lo mein noodles, and a bottle of Sesame Garlic Sauce.  I had oil and minced garlic at home.

The recipe calls for just 20 minutes of “active time”.  Now, I am not a speed demon in the kitchen, but 20 minutes would be very tight.  You need to blanch the green beans and the noodles, stir fry the chicken, and then mix it all together with the sauce.  The steps were fairly simple though, and you don’t need a lot of cooking experience to execute the recipe.

I wasn’t sure that I’d like using a bottled sauce, but I really did like the taste of this dish!  I had a friend for lunch, and she enjoyed it as well.  There was a part of my brain screaming, “you could make this all from scratch and it would probably be so much better, and less expensive, and have less sodium…..”  But I was also grateful that I had time to do errands that morning, and the meal was still less expensive and healthier than typical take-out.  So I am calling it a win!

• Main Dishes