Brown Sugar Chicken in the Crock Pot

The title alone of this recipe should clue you in that it's good. Sugar + Crock Pot = Good.

But just in case that didn't get the point across, I'll tell you, this recipe is good.

This chicken is not winning any awards for prettiest meal. In fact, as I was dishing it up, I was a little nervous about how good this was going to taste because it wasn't super pretty. But after I took my first bite I paused and told Kyle, "Oh this is good."

There you have it - it's good.

AND EASY!

I had pinned this recipe on Pinterest a long time ago but it got lost in Pinland for a while, so I'm glad I noticed it on my board again.

The only troublespot I had with this recipe is that the "sauce" was super duper liquidy - I'm not sure if maybe cooking this on high instead of low would solve that problem? Or I guess reducing the amount of liquid would help, but I'm not sure how that would affect the flavor of the chicken. Here are some options:

* Try cooking it on high for a shorter amount of time vs. on low.

* For the last hour of cooking, take the lid off of the crock pot to allow some of the liquid to reduce and evaporate (just keep an eye on it). 

* Reduce the sauce on the stove (this is what I did). To do this, spoon out a good amount of the sauce into a sauce pan, and simmer it on the stove until the liquid has thickened into more of a glaze (I think this took mine probably around 10-15 minutes). Stir or whisk frequently during this time. You can tell the difference in the picture above - the liquid on the plate is the liquid that came out of the crock pot with the chicken, but then notice on top of the chicken the thick glaze - that was the reduced sauce. In my opinion, this was TOTALLY WORTH the effort it took for the flavor it added to the chicken. But it would still taste good without it!

This is sort of barbecue-y? A lot of the same components, minus the ketchup and onion and adding soy sauce and Sprite. It was kinda sweet, kinda tangy...it was just delicious!

When I made this I halved the recipe with just three chicken breasts. The original recipe says you can also use thighs or drumsticks...I'm just a white meat only type of person.

Brown Sugar Chicken

Original Recipe

6 chicken breasts (frozen or thawed)

1 cup of brown sugar

4-6 cloves of garlic, chopped

2/3 cup of apple cider vinegar (or white, if that's what you have)

1/4 cup Sprite or other lemon lime soda (just not diet)

2 TBS soy sauce

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

Spray your crock pot with cooking spray. Put the chicken in the bottom. Sprinkle the brown sugar on top of the chicken, followed by the garlic, salt and pepper. Add the vinegar and soy sauce. Then pour in the Sprite. Cook on low for 6-9 hours or high for 4-5 hours.

I served mine with zucchini and potatoes, which was a hit with my husband, but you could serve it with any type of vegetable side dish. We are normally big rice fans with chicken, but I don't personally think this would go perfectly with rice - the chicken was great as a stand alone!

Parmesan Spaghetti Bake

This recipe is pretty much spaghetti taken to the next level. But a level down from Million Dollar Spaghetti.

I will specify that this recipe requires grated parmesan cheese (like, the kind in the can/plastic container), which I bring from America, because it's really expensive to buy here. And you'll also notice in the above picture that we had the added bonus of some deli style sliced pepperoni that my mom brought over for us from America. But prior to that very welcome addition to our pantry, I'd made this recipe several times with just cheese on top and no pepperoni, and it was still great! 

I normally use spaghetti noodles in this recipe, but when I went to make it last week I was out of spaghetti and only had linguine. However, I think I liked the linguine even better! But you can use any pasta you wish - spaghetti, linguine, fettucini, even shaped pasta like penne or rotini. Whatever you have on hand!

VEGETABLE BONUS - I add a big handful of chopped spinach right into the sauce, and you'd never even notice taste wise! You could also add some grated zucchini into this as you're browning the chicken, but most recently I served this with THIS ZUCCHINI on the side and it was delightful.

To make your spaghetti sauce, you can obviously spend the big bucks to get a jar of Ragu, or use an Indian version of spaghetti sauce, or you can make your own using tomato puree and some basic spices - Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Oregano, Basil, Parsley, Salt & a little Sugar.

I have another one of those "I don't measure my ingredients" confessions here. Ahem, I don't measure the amount of each spice I put in. I said it, and I'm sorry. I did take a picture to give you an idea:

Ok, you can't really see the sugar (I add about a tsp or two, just to take the bite off of the tomato), and about a half tsp of salt. You also can't see the onion powder or garlic powder. But in the picture, the top spice is the oregano, the one to the right is the basil, and the bottom is the parsley. Proportionally, I use the most of garlic powder (because I love garlic), and oregano (because it adds that super Italian-y flavor). Just add spices until it smells like spaghetti sauce, yeah? Give it a taste and adjust as needed.

Ok, here are the full directions!

Parmesan Spaghetti Bake

250 grams of pasta

1 lb chicken keema (ground chicken)

1-2 boxes of tomato puree

Spices for sauce (see above)

2-3 TBS of butter

1/3 - 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese

Shredded "pizza cheese" (mozzarella) for topping

Boil your pasta according to the package directions.

Brown your chicken keema in a pot until it is cooked through. Add the tomato puree and spices to the chicken (or canned spaghetti sauce). Warm until heated through. 

When your pasta is done cooking, drain it, and then transfer back into the pot. Add the butter and grated parmesan cheese and stir well. Grease a small casserole dish, then pour the pasta into the dish. Next pour the spaghetti sauce over the pasta and smooth out evenly. Sprinkle the top with grated pizza cheese (and pepperoni as a bonus!). 

Bake at 170 degrees Celsius (350 F) for 20-30 minutes, until the cheese on top is melted and the whole thing is heated through.
Double the recipe for a 9x13 size casserole, although you could still only use 1 lb. of chicken and have it be more sauce heavy vs. meat heavy. 

How To: Black Beans

I love black beans. I loooooooooove them.

Before living in India, I had never cooked black beans from the dry bean; I had only ever used canned black beans. It took me a few a LOT of tried to actually get them soft and cooked right. So here is how I like to do it!

I buy a bag of the black beans, called "Jammu Rajma" at my grocery store. 

Here's what they look like!

Dump them into a big bowl, and cover them with an inch of (filtered) water. Let them soak overnight.

The next day, you have one of two cooking options:

1) Pressure cooker (faster)

2) Slow cooker (uh, slower, but requires less attention)

Drain the water you soaked the beans in and rinse them off. If you're using a pressure cooker, dump the beans into the pressure cooker and cover them with about a half inch of water. Let them cook in the pressure cooker for about 8-10 "whistles", then check to see if they're soft enough for you. (Confession...my house helper always pressure cooks my black beans, so I'm kind of guessing on the amount of time it takes to cook them). 

** Note on using your pressure cooker - be sure ALL the pressure is out before trying to open it! You can just let it sit awhile until the pressure naturally disperses, or you can use tongs or another long handled utensil to hold open the pressure valve and allow more steam to escape. Or you can put your pressure cooker in the sink and pour cold (filtered) water over the outside of it, which also helps decrease the temperature and pressure. 

If you are using your slow cooker, dump your rinsed beans into the slow cooker, and then fill it with water about an inch above the beans. Cook them on high for several hours (I think mine cooked for at least 6-7 hours before they were soft). This is a great option if you don't need them in a hurry and don't want to pay attention to the pressure cooker.

After your beans are cooked, you can portion them out into smaller containers to refrigerate or freeze.

I like to put about 2 cups of beans per container, which is roughly the amount in a can of beans. Cover the beans with some of the liquid they cooked in to keep them from getting dry in the freezer. Allow the beans to cool COMPLETELY before putting in the freezer! Now you have cooked beans on hand whenever you need them! Just pull them out of the freezer and let them thaw before cooking dinner, or you can thaw them in the microwave if you forgot to pull them out early enough. 

I also really like to cook some of the black beans with some seasoning to use on taco bowls, salads, or to quickly make some Black Bean Quesadillas. Here's what to do:

Finely chop one small onion and 3-4 cloves of garlic.

Add your black beans, enough water to cover them, and the onions & garlic to a pot. Add about 3-4 tsps of cumin, and a tsp of chili powder, plus salt to taste. (If you want to add a kick of heat, add a few shakes of crushed red pepper). Bring this all to a boil, then turn down to a simmer. Simmer for 20ish minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are soft and it smells delicious. The beans are obviously already cooked; you're just letting the onions and garlic cook and all the flavor to simmer together.

Tastiness simmering away

Either serve immediately, or you can refrigerate or freeze just like the unseasoned beans! I could seriously eat these beans with just a big bowl of rice - yum. 

Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup

Let's continue right along with the soup theme, shall we?

This creamy chicken and rice soup is a great cousin to Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup. In fact, one day I was making both soups side by side for a big group dinner, and had to keep reminding myself which one would ultimately be which.

I'm going to direct you to the original recipe I used, because I really only had to make a minor change.

Because I can't find wild rice here, I just used basmati rice. But the one time I tried cooking the rice in with the soup as the recipe suggests, it turned into just a big pile of rice mush as opposed to soup (which still tasted good, but, texture wise left a lot to be desired). So instead, just cook the rice separately and stir it in at the end. Because your rice isn't cooking in the soup, you can decrease the amount of liquid - so only add the 6 cups of chicken broth (6 cups of water + 6 chicken cubes thrown in the crock pot), and omit the extra 2 cups of water.

Before serving, cook 1 cup of basmati rice according to the package directions. Take the chicken out and shred it. Make the milk/flour mixture (let it get really thick), and then stir the milk mixture, shredded chicken, and cooked basmati rice all in at the same time just before serving.

Also, I didn't have official poultry seasoning, but I found a spice at the store called "mixed herbs" that seemed to have a lot of the same spices. If you don't have these, you could add a dash of thyme, rosemary, and parsley (go easy on the rosemary, or your soup will taste like a Christmas tree). 

RECIPE LINK

Anything Goes Vegetable Soup

So I've recently been inspired by my friend Meghan to eat more vegetables. She's especially good at this, as in she eats steamed broccoli for breakfast. Yes, she does. #vegetablemachine

Considering that I tend to cycle through the same 2-3 vegetables as side dishes for dinner, I wasn't exactly sure how to go about upping my daily veggie intake. Meghan to the rescue with her great vegetable soup idea!

The great thing about this soup is that you can literally put any vegetable you want in there. Really, anything. Here's the basic "recipe" Meghan gave me:

Anything Goes Vegetable Soup

Any vegetables you want - chopped.

1 box of tomato puree (this would be a small 8 oz can of tomato sauce in America)

Water - however much you want

Seasonings - salt & pepper to taste, and then whatever else you want to add (I added just a bit of Mrs. Dash Southwest Seasoning, per Meghan's suggestion)

1-3 chopped green chiles - Meghan is daring and likes to use 3, but I could only handle 2 small ones. These really add a ton of flavor and a little kick of heat to the soup.

Dump everything into a big pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes to an hour or until the vegetables are as soft as you'd like them to be. 

I can't even begin to tell you how awesome this was. I made a big pot last night and plan to eat it for lunch all week - this will be the most veggies I've ever consumed in a week before! I ate some for the first time today, and it was quite yummy. And because it's all vegetables, you can eat a really big bowl, which is really filling!! Win!

Here's what I put in my first concoction (pictured above):

Handful of green beans

2 carrots

1 green capsicum (bell pepper)

1 zucchini

4 tomatoes

1 cup of frozen peas

4 small potatoes

1 small onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 cup of black beans

2 small green chiles

Here are some other ideas:

Mushrooms

Corn

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Sweet potatoes

Chick peas

Any other kind of bean

Celery

Kale

Any other vegetable you can think of! Anything goes!!!

ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: Keep in mind that whenever you boil vegetables, some of the nutrients cook out into the water. So in order to consume all the nutrients from the veggies, you MUST eat/drink the broth with this soup! Which it tastes good, so no hardship there. 

Meghan, thanks for revolutionizing my nutrient intake. 

Chili - the Real Deal!

So, back home in the US, here was my method for making chili: dump browned hamburger, canned beans, tomato sauce, V8 Juice, and two packets of chili seasoning into a crockpot.

That doesn't translate super well to India.

But my friend Laura created an amaaaaaaaazing chicken chili recipe here that is so good, you'd think you were eating beef chili in America.

I am an eyewitness taster to this chili, and I testify that it is amaaaaaaaazing.

Here's how she did it!

She started with THIS RECIPE and then did the following alterations:

"For the canned tomatoes, I cut (skins on or off, as you prefer) about 12-14 tomatoes into small cubes. I heated them on high unit they boiled, then simmered them for 15 minutes. Add basil, salt, and pepper.

I also added one bay leaf, some smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce, and 1-2 T brown sugar.

And you can add other peppers, or more onions if you want (I like it heavy on the veggies)."

For sake of simplicity, you can pay to buy canned beans from the import section of the grocery store, if available (totally worth it for this chili, if you ask me). Or you can substitute the canned beans with some dried rajma beans that have been cooked and rinsed. 

It was delicious. Now I'm looking for an excuse to have her make it for me again...

One Hour Dinner Rolls

My husband loves bread.

Actually, he claims that all men love bread.

Let's be honest: I also love bread.

However, India is not the land flowing with canned crescent rolls, so having dinner rolls to accompany an everyday dinner takes slightly more effort than popping open a tube and rolling up precut dough triangles. (I am NOT knocking "breads from a tube" - oh how I love them and absolutely plan to use them whenever in America).

I grew up making dinner rolls with my mom from her secret family recipe (actually, it's not a secret. I have no idea where she got it. But we always made them growing up, which makes it seem like a secret family recipe). But from start to finish, those rolls take over 4 hours. Most days, I don't remember 3 hours ahead of time before dinner to mix up some dinner rolls.

But these beauties only take an hour. Yes. ONE HOUR. (Ok, approximately. Your first couple of times making them might take a few minutes longer till you get the hang of it. But "Approximately One Hour Possibly Longer Dinner Rolls doesn't have a nice ring to it.)

Here's what makes these rolls awesome:

1. They only take (approximately) one hour.

2. They have an unbelievably fluffy texture.

3. Melted honey butter. Oh yum.

This recipe has quite a bit of text explaining what I did, and because I'm in a long-winded mood, but feel free to skip right down to the actual recipe.

I of course started with a recipe from Pinterest, and really only had to alter the amount of flour I used. The original recipe said "3 1/2+ cups of flour," and I probably used at least 5. 

{Confession time...I don't actually measure my flour when making bread. *hangs head*  I'm sorry, I know that drives you crazy if you're new to making bread, but I just can't help it. I just know by look and feel when I've reached the appropriate amount of flour. The most recent time I made these I just shook the flour in straight from the bag and didn't even use a measuring cup. I'm feeling almost ashamed admitting this...}

So I'm just going to say 5+ cups of flour.

ALSO, the original recipe called for 2 TBS of active dry yeast, but since I was using rapid rise, I used more like 1-1 1/2 TBS (don't hate me for the approximate amounts!)

First you let the yeast start doing it's thing in the water, sugar, butter, and honey. After sitting for 15 minutes, it will look nice and foamy like this:

Then you start mixing in your egg, salt and flour.

Although I made these the first time using my KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook, like the original recipe instructs, I actually prefer just mixing these by hand. That's how I always made my mom's rolls, old fashioned kneading by hand. I think it's easier to get the dough mixed well and know when the proper amount of flour is added when I can feel it by hand. However, if you didn't grow up making rolls with your mom, you might be intimidated by what "kneading" means (at least I would be, if not for my mom). So I took a very poorly recorded video of me kneading the dough. 

Uh yes, it's really difficult to hold your phone in one hand and knead with the other. I don't recommend it.

Basically for kneading, just picture yourself scooping your fingers underneath the ball of dough, flipping your hand over, and then pushing the dough down with the heel of your hand (is "heel" a term for your hand? You know, the bottom part connected to your wrist). You're continually flipping the dough around and around so the flour gets evenly distributed throughout. 

Rather than letting the dough rise in one big ball, you immediately roll it out into individual rolls and then let them rise for another 25 minutes before baking. 

When I took these pictures, I made 12 giant sized rolls (as per original recipe), but I've subsequently made the recipe into 18 smaller rolls, and I actually preferred the way they turned out that way, so that's what I'd recommend. 

Big giant balls of dough after rising

My friend Meghan (hi, Meghan!) who loves LOVES crescent rolls, said she liked these rolls even better than the crescents we make for Thanksgiving. This is huge, folks. Meaning, you should definitely give these a try!

One Hour Dinner Rolls

Original Recipe

1 - 1 1/2 TBS quick rise yeast

1 cup plus 2 TBS warm (not cold, not hot) water

1/3 cup melted butter

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

5+ cups of flour (maida)

1/4 cup honey + 1/4 cup butter melted together (do this just before baking)

In a large bowl, combine your warm water, yeast, melted butter, honey, and sugar. Give it a stir with a spoon to combine. Let it rest for 15 minutes until it is frothy and foamy. 

Add in your egg, salt, and a couple cups of flour and stir with the spoon. Continue adding additional flour about a half cup at a time until a ball of dough begins to form. Shake a little flour on your spoon and wipe off any dough clinging to the spoon. Knead the dough by hand, continuing to add flour until the dough is a cohesive ball and not sticky at all (it shouldn't have any portions that still stick to your fingers). You'll discover quickly while rolling out the individual rolls if you haven't added enough flour, because it will be too sticky to roll together! If that's the case, throw the rolls back in and knead a bit more flour in.

Spray a cookie sheet (or muffin tins) with cooking spray. Roll the dough into 12-18 rolls, depending how big you want them to be. (My favorite has been when I made 18 rolls, which I had to do on 2 cookie sheets since India ovens are small). Cover with a light towel (or put them in your oven - not turned on) and let rise for 25 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 F). Melt the 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup honey together in the microwave, mix well, and then brush over the tops of the rolls. Bake for 15-17 minutes, or until tops are slightly browned and feel firm to the touch.

Remove from oven, and allow to cool for just a minute before brushing them again with the honey butter mixture. Serve warm and gooey!