Chicken Cherryaki Fever

Ever since that Pepto Bismol commercial has come on talking about Cherryaki my kids have been asking me to make them Chicken Cherryaki!!
This is not a fictional food. After a little surfing on the Internet I managed to find a great recipe for this kid pleasing dish which includes cherries!
CHICKEN CHERRYAKI
2 pkg. Lipton Onion Soup Mix
2 cans cranberry sauce
2 bottles (8 oz.) Catalina dressing
8 to 10 chicken breasts
2 cans dark, sweet, pitted cherries (drained)
Mix top 3 ingredients together. Place some mixture in bottom of large Pyrex dish. Place chicken breasts on top of mixture and cover with remaining mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for about 2 hour.
When done, place chicken and sauce on regular or wild rice. Heat cherries a sauce pot, drain of extra juice and spoon on top of chicken.
I know it sounds high sodium and tacky and all that but it was absolutely delicious. My kids loved it too, possibly because it was the color pink. It certainly gave the impression of being a fun food.\
That was the fun version. I found another version that is a little healthier, more Asian in appearance that would make an impressive dish to serve guests.
The sweet, yet tart flavor of fresh cherries, makes them a wonderful addition to this stir-fry meal.
Makes 4 servings.
Here is an even fancier version that is appeals more to adult palates.
Asian Chicken Cherryaki
4 tablespoons (60 ml) Teriyaki sauce (available in any supermarket)
1 tablespoon (15 ml) sesame oil
1 tablespoon (15 ml) grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon (15 ml) cooking sherry
1/2 tablespoon (7.5 ml) fresh lime juice
.75 pound (.35 kilograms) pork*, cubed
1/2 tablespoon (7.5 ml) vegetable oil
1 small white onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups whole cherries, pits removed
1-14 oz (398ml) can miniature corn cobs
1 cup snow peas
1 cup sliced red pepper
1 cup (250 ml) chicken broth
1 tablespoon (15 ml) corn starch
2 green onions, chopped (optional)
Combine first 5 ingredients and mix well. Add pork cubes. Set in fridge to marinate.
Prepare cherries, corn, snow peas and red pepper. Heat vegetable oil in wok or large saucepan on medium. Add onion and garlic. Heat for 1-2 minutes to soften slightly. Add pork marinade mixture and cook for 5 minutes. Increase the heat, add snow peas and red pepper.
Cook for 1-2 minutes. In small bowl, stir cornstarch into chicken broth until dissolved. Add to wok, cooking for 2 minutes until sauce begins to thicken. Add cherries and corn and cook until warm. Remove from heat. Garnish with chopped green onion.
To make it fancy for guests serve it over angel hair pasta! In fact this could be a great food for Valentine's Day.

Healthy Sugar Substitutes

My kids have sweet tooths and so do I and my husband. Still we all know how sugar is supposed to be bad for you.
The first thing that you have to do is cut the level of refined sugar that you take on board every day. This means that you must cut right back on sugar rich foods such as cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, jellies and the like and if you currently ladle sugar all over your breakfast cereal in the morning, stop doing it right now.
In addition, if you take sugar with your tea or coffee, try to wean yourself off sweetening your drinks or if this is something that you cannot imagine doing, try a natural sweetener like stevia or sucanat as alternative.
The first of these natural sweeteners is somewhat controversial in that it is approved by the FDA as a dietary supplement but not as a sweetener. Nevertheless, even though it is a little expensive, the extreme sweetness of stevia means that a little goes an awful long way, so the cost per cup of tea or coffee is probably no different to cost of the sugar you are currently buying.
On the other hand, sucanat is a one-for-one direct replacement for processed sugar and as always, there are plenty of places on the net where you can obtain both of these substances.
The point about having too much sugar in your diet is that not only does all of that instant energy tend to get piled on as fat if it is not used, processed sugar is bad for your immune system and particularly for your skin. Consequently, if you consume too much processed sugar or products made from sugar, it is pretty much a given that you are going to suffer boils and other skin problems.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that you have to cut all sweet foods from your diet, but what you should do is replace the sweets that you used to use with natural sweet substances wherever possible. For example, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is an essential of any well-balanced diet, and if you want to boost your immune system, then you can replace some of the sweetness that you have lost with the sweetness of fruit.
Furthermore, there are lots of other entirely natural sweet substances that you can use to satisfy your sweet tooth. The sweet syrup that is commercially extracted from Agave comes in three different variations, ranging from a ‘light version' that has little traceable taste of the plant (just sweetness) to the version that carries a noticeable taste of the plant itself.
You then have reliable old standbys like maple syrup as well as less known but entirely natural sweeteners such as barley malt, date sugar, fruit juice concentrate and sorghum syrup.
There is also honey with some varieties such as manuka honey from New Zealand having acknowledged antibacterial qualities as well as being stunningly sweet as well. Indeed, as you can read on the website, the antibacterial qualities of this particular honey are so pronounced that you can even apply it to wounds for its antibacterial qualities!