Orange Chicken Quick To Prepare

If you want to totally embarrass your adolescent children, take them out for your birthday dinner.

But don’t just take them anyplace. Make sure it’s the restaurant’s custom to call everyone’s attention to your table and encourage young and old alike to sing the birthday song as loud as they can. It does a mom’s heart good to see her children wiggle and squirm as they realize they’ve been had.

My birthday is in early June, and it’s always a trick to get a table on the first weekend of the month. It’s the busiest weekend for high school graduation celebrations and restaurants are packed.

So this year we chose an earlier weekend, in mid-May, and thought we were doing pretty well until we saw a sea of gowns and tuxedos. It was prom weekend and groups of young people in beautiful outfits enjoyed the warm weather as they waited for seating in restaurants.

Fortunately, we found a nice place where we had dinner. Then the waiter asked my name so he could announce it for the group sing-along.

“I’m going to leave now,” said my teenager, who had just realized what was about to happen.

“This is going to be so boring,” said my preteen daughter, realizing it was going to be anything but boring.

My youngest daughter, who loves birthdays, was already practicing her singing. My husband just smiled with amusement.

Luckily the birthday song is mercifully short and most people are more interested in getting back to their food.

Here’s a fast chicken recipe to gobble up so you can get to the birthday cake and that wonderful song that accompanies it.

Quick Orange Chicken

From “Favorite Brand Name Diabetic Cooking” (Publications International, 1999).

2 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate

1 tablespoon no-sugar-added orange marmalade

1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 14 ounces)

1/2 cup fresh orange sections

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Combine concentrate, marmalade, mustard and salt in 8-inch shallow microwaveable dish, stirring until concentrate is thawed.

Add chicken, coating both sides with sauce. Arrange chicken with thickest parts toward edge of dish. Cover with vented plastic wrap. Microwave at HIGH 3 minutes; turn chicken over. Microwave at MEDIUM HIGH (70 percent power) 4 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink in center.

Remove chicken to serving plate. Microwave remaining sauce on HIGH 2 to 3 minutes or until slightly thickened.

Spoon sauce over chicken and top with orange sections and parsley.

Yield: 4 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 157 calories, 3 grams fat (16 percent fat calories), 10 grams carbohydrate, 23 grams protein, 60 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 207 milligrams sodium.