Chili-Orange Chicken Recipe -slow cooker (Woman's Day Month of Menus)

I have to be honest here, I almost gave up today.  I bought enchilada sauce way back when I went grocery shopping.  I set it aside for the day I would make this recipe.
Well, I was going to a work event to have some nice socializing with co-workers, and decided today would be the perfect day for a slow cooker recipe.  I looked everywhere and just could not find the enchilada sauce.  I was seriously frustrated and decided I just wasn't going to do it.  I was tired of cooking, I was tired of just everything and I just wanted to go out and have fun.  Very mature, right?
Well, I got all my stuff ready to go, packed the baby in the car and got halfway down the block.  I don't know why, but I just felt bad and so I turned around, unpacked the baby, went back in the house, and got everything ready, replacing the enchilada sauce with salsa.

I think it was a turning point for me.  But I feel good about it now.  I decided to do something, and I stuck to it, even though it was very difficult to do!

So anyway, here it is:

Chili-Orange Chicken

• Active Time: 10 minutes
• Total Time: 6 minutes

Recipe Ingredients

3/4 cup mild enchilada sauce 1/4 cup barbecue sauce (we used Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Chipotle) 1 Tbsp salt-free chili powder 1 tsp ground cumin 4 bone-in chicken breasts (about 2 3/4 lb), skin removed, or 8 chicken drumsticks (about 2 1/2 lb), skin removed 3 Tbsp orange marmalade 1/2 cup chopped cilantro 2 tsp grated orange zest

Recipe Preparation

1. Mix enchilada sauce and barbecue sauce in a 6-qt or larger slow cooker.

2. Mix chili powder and cumin in a small cup. Rub all over chicken. Put chicken in slow cooker and turn to coat with sauce.

3. Cover and cook on high 3 to 4 hours or on low 5 to 7 hours until chicken is cooked through.

4. Turn off cooker. Remove chicken to a serving platter. Stir marmalade into sauce until blended. Stir in cilantro and orange zest, then pour over chicken.


My Experience:
The Process-
Well, getting started on the process, as I mentioned, was definitely a challenge.  But this slow cooker recipe was true to how I feel crock pot recipes should be.  Simple, easy, minimal preparation.  One thing I was sad about was that the chicken shrunk significantly, but I should have known that since it always happens to me.

The Result- 
This food was really, very good!  I never would have thought barbecue sauce with enchilada sauce (salsa), and oranges would taste good.  But it was, really good!  I used the remaining sauce on the rice and thoroughly enjoyed dinner.
My husband also thought it was very good, and today was the first day we had no leftovers ;)

Five stars!  Easy, delicious, and surprising.

Chicken Parmigiana in the slow cooker

Sorry I'm a little late today, I've been working late and am really tired!

I was skeptical at first when I saw this recipe, I had no idea you could make chicken parm in a crock pot.  It's one of my favorite dishes so naturally, I was very excited.  However, it turned out to be more of a Shredded Chicken Parmigiana, as the slow cooker just made all the chicken fall apart into little pieces.

Chicken Parmigiana

Fix-It and Forget-It p. 183

prep: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 egg

1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper

6 boneless chicken breast halves

1 cup Italian bread crumbs

2-4 Tbsp. butter

14 oz. jar pizza sauce (I just used pasta sauce)

6 slices mozzarella cheese 

grated Parmesan

Directions:

1. Beat egg, salt and pepper together. Dip chicken into egg and coat with bread crumbs.  Saute chicken in butter in skillet.  Arrange chicken in slow cooker.

2. Pour pizza sauce over chicken.

3. Cover.  Cook on Low 6-8 hours.

4. Layer mozzarella cheese over top and sprinkle with Parmesan.  Cook an additional 15 minutes.

My Experience:
The Process-
Well, everything went pretty smoothly except it said to saute the chicken first and I didn't know how much I was supposed to cook it.  Just brown it on each side or try to cook it all the way through?  Once again, for me this cookbook seems a little vague in terms of directions.  It took me much longer than just 15 minutes of prep time.  Probably more around 30. 

The Result-
As mentioned before, the chicken ended up falling all apart and the bread crumbs didn't stay on it, but it still tasted very good.  It just looked like chunky sauce, sad, and not very pretty but very delicious.
I give it 3 stars because while it was good, it was not great (I like my chicken parm to look like chicken parm!) and I didn't much like the time it took to prepare the meal.

The husband very much enjoyed it and said it was really good so I guess that bumps it up to 3.5.

Easy Pot Roast and Veggies

After the Sweet & Sour Meatball fiasco (which by the way actually made decent leftovers), the word "easy" appealed to me from this recipe.  So I gave it a try. It was indeed easy.

Easy Pot Roast and Veggies

prep time: 5-10 min.

cook time: 6-8 hrs

p. 88 "Fix-it and Forget-it Cookbook"

Ingredients:

3-4 lb roast

4 potatoes cubed

1 lb. baby carrots (or 4 medium sliced carrots)

2 celery ribs optional

1 envelope dry onion soup mix

3 cups water

I also added: minced garlic (our family favorite)

Directions:

1. Put roast, potatoes, carrots, celery in cooker.

2. Add onion soup mix and water

3. Cover.  Cook on low 6-8 hours

My Experience- The Process:
Really simple to make.  Just plopped everything into the cooker.  I especially liked this recipe because I was able to unwrap the roast straight into the cooker and avoid touching it.  I despise touching raw meat, totally grosses me out! Bleh.
Anyway, this recipe really was great for just "fixing and forgetting" I am glad to have found a recipe in the Ms. Good's cookbook that is true to it's name.


Dinner is Served!  The Result:

(yep, we're still using those croissants- have to finish them before they get stale!)

It was pretty good.  I also added split peas to the recipe (sorry forgot to mention that!) and they cooked well in the slow cooker which I am grateful for.  For me I would good it 4 stars, good, but not great.  It was pushed up from a 3 because of how easy it was to make.
The husband also gave it 4 stars.

In case you're wondering, my super intricate scale of rating recipes takes into account how easy the meal was to prepare, and how good it tasted.
I then average that out with the husband's rating.  I determine this by asking, "honey, how was dinner?"  And rank the meal based on one of the following responses:

"Great!" or "Really good" = 5 stars
"Good" = 4 stars
"Okay" = 3 stars
"Eh" = 2 stars
"Not very good" or he gets sick = 1 star

And since I don't work (meaning blog) on weekends I will see you all on Monday!  Happy Cooking <3

Sweet & Sour Meatballs with Pineapples

Hoooly cow!  My friend Phyllis, what are you doing to me?  I should have known.  She warned me, but I didn't listen.

Prep time on this recipe was stated in the cookbook as 40-45 minutes.  I thought, "that must be some old lady who takes a long time cooking, I can do it faster than that".  Ha.

Well, it did only take me about 35 minutes but with a screaming child who insists on seeing everything going on while you're cooking (I had to pick him up while turning the meatballs to get him to stop screaming) I don't know why I even attempted this recipe.

Also, I have learned a very valuable lesson: Always check your pantry for ingredients before you start.  Even if you think you have all the ingredients, you may be surprised to find that your wonderful significant other used the last of it up and failed to tell you.  Hmph.

Okay, so back to the recipe.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs With Pineapples

"Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook"  p. 122

Prep time- about 40minutes (seriously!)

Cooking time- 6 hours

Ideal for- 4-qt slow cooker

Ingredients:

For Meatballs- 2lbs. ground beef

1 1/4 cups bread crumbs (was about 2 slices of bread for me)

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

2-3 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 egg

1/2 tsp. garlic salt (I substituted with minced garlic, a family favorite)

1/4 cup finely chopped onions (I thought we had these, we didn't.  I substituted dried chopped onions- not a favorite)

Sauce- 1 can pineapple chunks, juice separated

3 Tbsp. cornstartch

1/4 cup cold water

1-1 1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup Worcestershire

1/4 tsp. salt, pepper, garlic salt

12 cup chopped green peppers (we didn't have these, I left them out)

Directions:

1. Combine meatball ingredients, shape into 60-80 meatballs (what a joke, I had like 20), brown in skillet rolling so all sides are browned and place meatballs into slow cooker.

2. Pour pineapple juice into same skillet and mix in with meatball remains.  (This step made me feel good about massacring 20% of my meatballs)

3. Combine cornstarch and cold water.  Add to skillet and stir until thickened.

4. Stir in ketchip and Worcestershire.  Season with salt, pepper, garlic, salt.  Add green peppers and pineapples.  Pour over meatballs.

5.  Cover, cook on Low setting for 6 hours.

My Experience-
The Process:

Okay so first of all, I have to say that while I admire Ms. Good for publishing a cookbook with such a plethora of recipes, I feel as though the trade off was having mediocre directions.

For a newbie cooker like me, browning the meatballs was intimidating.  Was I supposed to put water in the skillet first (yes, I learned this the hard way), how exactly do I "brown" a meatball?  It's round for goodness sake!  Did there need to be separation between the meatballs (the answer is no, in case you were wondering)?  Am I supposed to stir it while it's cooking or just let it sit? <-- still no answer to that one. I tend to over think things I guess, and cooking is no different.

I took a deep breath, and tried to fight the stress of a screaming baby and doing something new, and managed to get the meatballs into the cooker.  Here is Cooking Lesson #2: read the entire recipe first.  If I had read ahead, I would have known to leave the meatball remains in the skillet to mix in with the sauce but instead, I was plopping them into the cooker only to stop mid fork-maneuver as I read the words, "stir into drippings".   Not like this is a huge deal, but i wish I had read beforehand, then i wouldn't have been so disappointed with the fact many of my meatballs were falling apart.

The other big downfall of this recipe was that I was positive that we had cornstarch, but we didn't!  Or at least, I couldn't find it anywhere- and I looked everywhere.  So, I ended up substituting this with a fine cornflour my Abuelita uses to make empanadas.  A delicious dish I promise to post a recipe for in the future.

Taking everything into consideration, overall I suppose you could say I failed at this recipe, but I think the fact that it is bubbling in the cooker counts for something.  And soon, I will be able to inform you all of how it tasted.




Dinner is Served!  The Meal:

Not great.  This probably had something to do with my substitutions but I thought some of the spices and flavorings were a little too strong.  I'm sure it would have tasted great with some rice, which would have absorbed some of that flavor, but I didn't have time to make it since I work in the evenings.

Anyway, I thought it was just mediocre.  I like the idea of adding a fruit serving to dinner, but the effort it took to prepare the dish, was not worth the end result.  Two thumbs down from me.

(Note there are veggies missing from this dish, I just took a quick picture during my work break)

Although I didn't enjoy the meal, The Husband thought it was really good, I secretly think he was just excited that I actually cooked though!  I did get him to admit that the spices were a bit strong, but i think this also had to do with the fact i didn't use a complete 2 lbs of ground beef.

If you try this recipe out, I hope you learn from my mistakes, and that it works out well for you!