Frugal Food Friday: Sweet and Sour Chicken

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This recipe comes from the same cookbook as last week, "Quick and Healthy Recipes and Ideas" by Brenda J. Ponchtera.  Our kids LOVE it!  (And I highly recommend her cookbook!  I want to get the second one sometime.)

We serve this over brown rice.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Drain: 1 can (8 oz) unsweetened pineapple chunks, packed in juice, reserving juice.


In saucepan put:
1 lb. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
reserved pineapple juice
1 cup reduced-salt chicken broth
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar or equivalent amount of artificial sweetener
2 tsp. soy sauce
1/2 tsp chopped garlic. Cover and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

Add and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
1 cup sliced celery
1 small onion, quartered
1 green pepper, sliced
pineapple.

Separately combine:
3 Tbsp. Cornstarch
1/4 cup water Gradually stir into hot mixture. Continue to cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

Some things I like to do a bit differently:
I like to add two or sometimes three bell peppers instead of just one and have one of them be a red bell pepper if I can find them on sale.
Instead of chicken broth, I use water and the necessary amount of bouillon.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 5 cups (5 servings)
One Serving: 1 cup
Calories per serving: 230 with sugar, 190 with artificial sweetener
Fat: 3 grams
Exchanges: with sugar: 3 lean meat, 1 starch, 1 vegetable, 1/2 fruit (with artificial sweetener: reduce starch to 1/2) Due to the low fat content of chicken breasts, the calories are less than the exchanges would compute.