Homemade Sweet & Sour Chicken

I loooooooove Chinese food ( just look at my gut, it will tell ya! ) so, homemade Chinese food hacks = life. My coworker Jim sent me the recipe on Pinterest a while back and I never got to making it...until tonight!

Behold the chicken-y goodness:

The recipe, which I saved on Pinterest, is from a website called Natasha's Kitchen. You can find the recipe here. 

Now, the chicken needs to bake for about an hour at 325* so I don't recommend this being a Monday night dinner. I think altogether it took about 1.5 hours to prep and cook. 

I also only used 3 chicken boobs, but I didn't cut any of the other ingredients. And it came out amazingggggg! 

You must first cut, dip and fry the chicken prior to baking. The sauce is:

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

4 tbsp cattttsup ( ketchup ) 

1 tbsp soy sauce ( I use reduced sodium because...health =P )

1 tsp garlic salt

3/4 cup granulated sugar 

Once all the chicken is cooked, drench those bitches in this sauce and pop them in the oven. Make your sides and in a hour, you're eating some delicious din-din!

The Things We Shouldn't Say

It seems that everyone thinks that "their story" is the correct story. People use cruel words to express emotions rather than intelligent discussion. We all have the luxury of thinking for ourselves. But sometimes our perceptions are skewed due to misinformation and spite.

So let me tell you: sometimes, you should just keep your mouth shut.

I've learned ( the hard way--like a lot of things I've learned in my life ) that sometimes, it's best to just let things left unsaid. Instead of going straight for the jugular, maybe you should take a step back, reflect and then just shut up. Calling people names like "skank", "asshole", "loser", etc. doesn't help the cause. At all. Does it make you feel better?...because, if it does, maybe you need to look more deeply into your own issues. There's no point in it. Sometimes, you need to learn to cut your losses, say, "Things just didn't work out" when people ask questions, and just keep moving forward. 

We grow and we change; it is a major part of life. You reflect on your decisions of the past and where you want to go in your future. I'm not a perfect person: I'm far from it. But, I know this and I'm taking the steps to help to create a better version of myself. One of the bad habits I'm trying to break myself from is trying to fight back when people beat me down. What is the point of the back-and-forth banter and name-calling? It gets you nowhere. And, words can hurt: things you say can never be taken back. Even after an apology from an old friend, I simply told her that there was too much from our past that I could not forgive. But I let her know that I no longer harbored ill feelings and I wished her the best in life. That's how it *should* be. Not the "he did this, she did that" bullshit that we deal with nowadays. It's not so much the words that you cannot forgive, it's the way those words made you feel. If you don't have something nice to say, learn to say nothing at all.

Friends, family and lovers are not supposed to judge you, your downfalls, or your actions in the past...whether they are angry with you or not. These relationships are relationships that should be based on unconditional love, communication and understanding. But if you feel that one of these relationships lacks one or all of these, it's healthier to just cut your losses and walk away from a toxic situation. 

Plus, everyone's relationship with people is different. My relationship with Mallory is not the same as her relationship with someone like Sherry, and I get that. So, a side of Mallory I may see could be different from what Sherry sees. Not that she is a different person around everyone, because that's not what I'm getting at. You can be in any kind of relationship and expect things to be 50/50, right? But that person may have another relationship with someone who is okay giving 80 so, they only have to give 20. So in turn, they want 80 from you because they're used to only giving 20. Then you feel unappreciated, used and, well, angry. 

We are too old to be using the term "Well that's just how he/she is..."

And it's not okay to take secrets, experiences and years together and use it as leverage or a way to emotionally beat someone down.

That speaks immeasurable on your character.

Like I said prior, I've said and done some shitty things in my past. The conversation I stumbled upon from years ago also dives into that. But, unlike that conversation where I didn't feed into the jabs with rebuttals, I had many times before. Trying to beat down someone and make them feel like shit because they made you feel like shit solves not a damn thing.

We need to be kinder with our words.
We need to cut our losses and move on.
We need to grow up and take a step back.
And we need to learn to just...shut up.