Soy Balsamic Slow Cooker Chicken

Monday, October 3, 2011 | Carrie | tagged Chicken, Slow Cooker

I know I have said this before, but it honestly always takes me 2 tries and a Google search to spell balsamic correctly. Okay now that I have that off my chest we can move on.

In preparation of our anniversary in a few weeks, we transported the top tier of our wedding cake from my parents freezer to our freezer this weekend. It's in a huge box, so this meant that I had to clear out a shelf of my jam packed freezer. So I thawed a lot of chicken, and decided I would figure out something to do with it in the slow cooker.

This morning I woke up, realized I thawed 3 packages of chicken and needed to throw together something in the slow cooker before heading to work. The ingredients must have come to me in my sleep, because I thought quickly and came home to a delicious dinner. The more I use my slow cooker, the more I love it. As my husband put it tonight, our slow cooker is batting 1000. For all of you that have been requesting more easy and tasty slow cooker recipes, this one is for you.

Keep reading for the recipe, I've scaled it down a bit from what I actually did this time since most people don't need the amount of chicken I cooked. We're looking forward to eating the leftovers for lunch this week though!

Ingredients
2-3 lbs bone in chicken, I used a combination of drumsticks and breasts
1 whole onion, sliced into rings
3/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
5 cloves garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons peppercorn, cracked (or just use pepper if you are in a rush)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup chicken broth
chives
rice

Directions
Place chicken and onion in slow cooker. Pour soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorn into into slow cooker and stir around, coating chicken. Add brown sugar, cornstarch, and chicken broth and stir again. Cook on low for 5-6 hours, break and shred chicken up a bit (a potato masher works really well for this), serve over rice and garnish with chives.

No Cook Fudge

DECEMBER 28, 2011

I inherited my sweet tooth for chocolate, among many other features, from my sweet grandmother Mimi. Mimi made the best old-fashioned fudge around. She didn’t use marshmallow fluff or any other questionable substances—just sugar, cocoa, milk and butter, carefully combined according to the technique she’d learned in her high school home economics class (circa 1933).

Mimi and I made her famous fudge together a couple of times. She would start by pulling out her recipe, which was written in her young handwriting on an old, yellowed piece of paper. I’d stand on a step-stool in her sunny kitchen in Woodward, Oklahoma, and lean with my little hands, which looked like miniature versions of her hands, over her yellow laminate countertops. Her elegant, pale gold watch and wedding ring glimmered as she measured and stirred, and her brown eyes, the same color as mine, twinkled as she taught me her secrets to fudge making. I remember balling up little bits of fudge between my fingers and dropping the bitty balls of fudge into a bowl of water to test the temperature. We stirred some more and, finally, we dropped spoonfuls of heavenly scented, melted fudge goodness onto waxed paper. The process seemed like magic.

I’m sad to say that I have lost her fudge recipe, but all is not lost. I like to imagine that I’ll find it someday, tucked in between her other recipes or in one of her old cookbooks, and feel elated for days. I’ve recently inherited her wedding ring and watch, which fit my finger and wrist like they were made from me (because they kind of were). If Mimi were around today, I’d like to think that she’d love this fudge. It satisfies my sweet tooth, so I think it would satisfy hers.

Sometimes I try intriguing recipes out of sheer curiosity, and this is one of such recipes. It’s vegan and made with real, natural ingredients. It’s both vegan and raw if you use peanut butter made from raw peanuts (I didn’t). It requires a food processor and a small container (like the kind you might use for leftovers), but the method is as easy as it gets, no candy thermometer required. And it’s crazy delicious. Oh my, this fudge is good.

I’ve made it twice, once with regular cocoa powder and then again with organic cacao powder, which results in a richer fudge with a more intense dark chocolate flavor. If you can find it, I recommend using cacao powder because of its more healthful properties and because its richness does a better job of masking the flavor of the bananas.

No Cook Fudge

Recipe type: Dessert

Author: Cookie and Kate

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 15 mins

The easiest, healthiest fudge you’ll ever make! No thermometer, marshmallow fluff or corn syrup required. It’s vegan and raw, too.

Ingredients

1/2 cup coconut butter*
1 tablespoon peanut butter
2 small ripe bananas, cut into one-inch chunks
1/4 cup raw cacao powder** or regular cocoa powder
3 tablespoons agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch sea salt

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a food processor until smooth, roughly five minutes or so.
Use a spatula to pour the mixture into a flat, sealable container.
Place the container in the freezer. The fudge needs to be super cold in order to retain its shape, so I find that it’s best to store the fudge in the freezer. If you store it in the fridge, it will have a semi-solid mousse-like texture.

Notes

Adapted from Munchin with Munchkin’s Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge.
For more vegan fudge variations, check out this vegan fudge post on Chocolate Covered Katie.
This fudge keeps well in the freezer for a surprisingly long time, upwards of a week. Try not to slice it until you’re ready to eat a piece.
*To make your own coconut butter, pulse 8 ounces of shredded, unsweetened coconut in a food processor until smooth, which will take 8 to 12 minutes. Please note that 8 ounces of coconut will yield 1 cup of coconut butter, which is twice what you need for the recipe. I recommend 8 ounces because I have not had any luck making smaller batches in my food processor; too many flakes stick to the side. Perhaps a very smaller food processor could do the job. If you make 8 ounces’ worth, you can save 1/2 cup of coconut butter for later (it’s great on quick breads, muffins and more), or you can double the batch and toss twice the remaining ingredients into the food processor after making the coconut butter. Just pour the mixture into a bigger container and refrigerate/freeze as directed.
**Cacao powder is ground from raw cacao beans. It is not as processed as regular cocoa powder, which means that it is higher in antioxidants and nutrients and also tastes more intense than cocoa powder. You should be able to find a bag of it at your local health store or in bulk online. It’s great in smoothies, too.

Potato Latkes

i will be making these this weekend….so so delicious, but grating potatoes by hand is NOT fun!! do you eat your latkes with applesauce or sour cream? (i am a fan of sour cream!)

INGREDIENTS
5 large russet potatoes, peeled
1 medium onion
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup matzo meal
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup canola oil, for frying

DIRECTIONS
Grate potatoes and onion into a bowl or pulse in food processor. Drain any excess liquid, then add the eggs, matzo meal, salt and pepper.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Spoon the mixture into hot oil forming small pancakes. Cook until underside is golden, about 2 to 3 minutes. Flip pancakes and cook until other side is golden and potatoes are cooked through, about 2 minutes more. Serve hot with sour cream or applesauce.

OVERNIGHT CREME BRULEE FRENCH TOAST
recipe from: Six Sisters Stuff

1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp corn syrup
1 loaf Texas Toast bread or other thick sliced bread (I just bought French bread and cut into thick slices)
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Dash of cinnamon

In a small saucepan melt butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup over medium heat until smooth, stirring occasionally. Pour mixture onto large, greased jelly roll pan (18x13x1"). Spread around to cover surface. Place 12 slices of bread in a single layer to cover pan. Mix together eggs, cream, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon. Spoon mixture over each piece of bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. Remove from pan and serve. If not serving immediately, turn each slice of bread over (this will prevent bread from sticking to the bottom of the pan).

Enjoy!

http://tipnut.com/recipes-canning/

that is a link to over 85 canned recipes :) enjoy will be on here more :)