Spicy Peanut Noodles

I am a huge fan of any kind of asian and asian inspired foods and when I was younger, my mom came up with this spicy peanut chicken noodle recipe and I absolutely loved it. She never really measured ingredients, kind of just eyeballed stuff, but I finally sat down and tried the best I could to come up with an actual recipe. The two biggest things that can be altered in this is how spicy you want it and how strong of a peanut taste you want. I know there's a long list of ingredients and that might intimidate you if you're not used to cooking, but it's really not as hard as it looks. Plus you have your meat, pasta and vegetables all in one dish.

You will need: 

 1/2 bag of lo mein noodles (about 7oz)

Canola oil

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut up

1 tsp fresh ginger, minced

1/2 tsp garlic, minced

1 tbsp soy sauce

2-3 cups shredded cabbage

1/2-1 cup celery, sliced thin

2-3 cups bean sprouts

1/4 cup scallions, chopped

 For sauce:

2 cups chicken broth

4 tbsp peanut butter (add more if you really like the peanut taste)

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp water/cornstarch mix

1/2 cup peanuts, chopped (garnish)
1/2 cup scallions (garnish)

Combine soy sauce and garlic, set aside to marinate. Cook lo mein as directed on package. You can cook the chicken two ways. In the picture above, I had some left over shredded chicken that I threw in, but normally I would cut up the chicken into bite size pieces and cook in a skillet with a little bit of oil, until no longer pink. Add celery, then other vegetables (cabbage, bean sprouts, scallions) and cook until tender. Take out of skillet.
In the empty skillet, add chicken broth, peanut butter, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, garlic and cornstarch mix. Cook until thick sauce forms. *It helps to heat the chicken broth and peanut butter in the microwave first to melt the peanut butter. Put the chicken, pasta and vegetables back in the skillet and mix well. Garnish with chopped peanuts and scallions. *I also like to add extra chopped peanuts into the pasta because I like the extra crunch.