CrockPot Orange Chicken (and a secret)

I haven't forgotten about this blog. And I have been cooking! I just haven't had time to post much lately. Hopefully over the summer I'll be able to get some new recipes on here. Especially since I'll be heading up the food for a wedding reception. We'll be doing lots of tasting in the coming weeks.

This recipe has a lot going for it, since it's quick, easy, and cheap. Did I mention yummy? Even Allen, who isn't the world's biggest fan of cooked fruit, thought it was great.

Now for the secret. Those of you who know me know that I've recently become slightly addicted to couponing. What you may not know is that I keep a spreadsheet of my grocery savings. Yes. What a nerd. (This spreadsheet doesn't include Walgreen's spending or milk. Maybe next year I'll try to be more comprehensive.) The bottom line is this: we budget $200 a month for groceries, and I stay within that budget. Meals like this one help me do that! We're also "part-time vegetarians" and eat several meatless meals each week. This week's meatless nights included lentils tacos, which are amazing. I'll try to post the recipe sometime soon, because it is one of our standard meals now.

But on to the orange chicken!

4 chicken drumsticks, skin removed* (I forgot to remove the skin. Oops)
4 chicken thighs, skin removed*
1 cup green and red bell pepper strips
1/2 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup prepared orange juice
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon light molasses
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
11 ounces can mandarin oranges
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 cup frozen peas

*Or use 4 chicken leg quarters

PREPARATION:

(Ideal slow-cooker size: 5- to 6-quart)

Place chicken in slow cooker. Top with pepper strips. Combine broth, juice, ketchup, soy sauce, molasses, mustard, and garlic salt. Pour over chicken. Cover. Cook on low 5-6 hours.

Measure out 1 cup of cooking sauce from the crock pot. Put in saucepan and bring to boil. Drain oranges, reserving 1 Tbsp. juice. Stir cornstarch into reserved juice. Add to boiling sauce in pan. Add peas to sauce and cook, stirring 2-3 minutes until sauce thickens and peas are warm. Stir in oranges.

Arrange chicken pieces on platter of cooked white rice or lo mein noodles. Pour orange sauce over chicken and rice or noodles. If you want to get fancy, you can chop a few green onions and throw them on top.

This dish is great the next day. When I was putting away the leftovers, I pulled all the meat off the bones and combined the meat and sauce. Allen liked it better this way!

CrockPot Cacciatore with Spaghetti Squash

Have you ever cooked a spaghetti squash? It has to be one of the coolest vegetables EVER!

Check it out! How cool is that? I first tried spaghetti squash about a year ago, when I was dealing with gestational diabetes and trying desperately to find something that I could eat that wouldn't make my blood sugar do crazy things.

That night, it wasn't that great. I didn't let the squash cook long enough, so it ended up being kinda crunchy. Ew.

But I decided to give it another shot. Y'know. Cause I'm fair like that.

So I made chicken cacciatore! In the crock pot! With spaghetti squash!

Ingredients
1 onion
1 clove garlic
2 cups cooked chicken
1 bell pepper, seeded and sliced into chunks
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 spaghetti squash

1. Poke a few holes in the spaghetti squash and microwave for about 3 minutes to soften it up a bit. You can try cutting it in half without this, but it may necessitate a trip to the emergency room because you sliced your arm off. These suckers are hard to get into. So just nuke it for a few minutes, and then slice it in half with ease!

2. Cut the squash in half and remove seeds. Place cut side down in a dish with 1/4 cup water and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave for 8-10 minutes, or until squash is tender.

3. ALLOW THE SQUASH TO COOL. Cause it's really hot at this point. Then, use a fork to scoop out the flesh into spaghetti-like strands! (This is the most fun part of the whole recipe).

4. Add chicken, squash, tomatoes, onions, bell pepper, garlic, and spices to the crock pot. Cook on high 4 hours or low 6-8.

CrockPot Carnitas

This recipe gets a thumbs up from my sweet hubby. I think he'd be ok if we ate this 4 out of 5 nights of the week (with the fifth night being homemade pizza). That's fine with me, because I love making carnitas! For those of you who haven't had them before, carnitas is just cooked, seasoned pork. Think of it like a pork taco!

Recipes don't get much easier than this.

2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp ground corriander
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (this is NOT optional--trust me, it makes the dish!)
1 (3 to 4lb) Boston Butt pork roast
2-3 bay leaves
salt to taste (1-2 tsp should do fine)

Now for the directions:

1. Put meat in the crockpot and rub seasonings in.

2. Cook on low for 10-12 hours or high for 7-8 hours. (Note: you're just wanting to cook it till it's falling apart tender. Some crock pots cook more quickly than others do, so the cooking times are approximate).

3. When done, shred the meat and serve with tortillas, sour cream, cheese, and your choice of hot sauce!

See? I told you it was easy!

Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole

I don't often make things up off the top of my head; usually I'll get an "inspiration recipe" and take it from there. Last week, I was feeling adventurous and decided to flex my creative muscles. What resulted was a super-tasty casserole that the hubby demanded I make again. Awesome!

1 lb ground beef, browned
6 medium potatoes, scrubbed and diced
6 strips of bacon, browned
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 cup beef broth

The best part of this recipe was how easy it is. I used ground beef from the freezer and crisped the bacon in the microwave (5 minutes on high should do the trick), so no pans required! Dumped everything in the crock and cooked for 8 hours.

The casserole was good cooked as listed above, but if you're feeling extra cheesy, or if you just want to jazz it up, make this cheddar cheese sauce and pour it in during the last hour of cooking.

2 tbls butter
2 tbls flour
1 cup milk
1 cup cheddar cheese

Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat. Add flour and stir till smooth. Add milk. Cook for 3-4 minutes on low, just until it begins to thicken. Add cheddar cheese and stir until cheese is melted. There you go! Easy cheddar cheesy! I guess you could probably use a can of condensed cheddar cheese soup if you wanted it to be even easier, but I didn't have any.

Creamy Potato Soup

We've had a crazy amount of snow days lately. Of course, we expected it this week; it is lectureship after all! But let's recap the snowiness of the past couple of weeks:

Friday, Jan 29--Snow day!
Monday, Feb 1--Snow day!
Tuesday, Feb 2--Snow day!
Wednesday, Feb 3--Snow day!
Monday, Feb 8--Snow day!
Tuesday, Feb 9--Snow day!

All this snowiness necessitates soup. Last week we had chicken with 40 cloves of garlic soup and a fantastic beef stew. Yum yum. This week, we're going with potato soup.

1 onion, diced
6 potatoes, diced
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried dill weed
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder

Cooked in the crockpot about 7 hours on low. 30 minutes before serving stirred in

1/2 cup flour mixed with
2 cups half and half

Pureed some of the potatoes to enhance the creamy factor. Served with crumbled bacon and cheddar cheese. This one's a winner!

Vegetarian Taco Soup

Sometimes I drift so far afield of the inspiration recipe that I'm not sure I can even claim to have followed it! Tonight was one of those times! I found a recipe for Taco Soup (originally by Paula Deen) and decided to jazz it up a bit. We really have been digging Lentils Tacos lately. Don't knock it till you've tried it! The texture of the lentils is surprisingly similar to ground beef, and the flavor is out of this world! So I thought, why not apply the same substitution to taco soup? Here's what we did...

Since I hate buying canned beans, I used dried. I have no idea on the measurements, but I'll try to estimate.

2 cups dried pinto beans
1 cup dried light red kidney beans
2 cups black beans (these were already cooked and in the freezer)
2 cups lentils
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans green chiles
1/2 cup green olives, sliced
1/2 cup black olives, sliced
2 envelopes taco seasoning
4 tablespoons ranch dressing seasoning mix
2 tsp beef base

All this cooked in the crockpot on high for about 6 hours. Viola!