Sweet 'N Sour Chicken and Rice

I recently rediscovered my Mom's Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly cookbook
I love using a crockpot, it's so handy; throw the food in turn, it on and in 6-8 hours you have a meal! Not to mention it keeps me from having to turn on the stove or oven which is a definite bonus in the summer.

Sweet 'N Sour Chicken and Rice
Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly
serves 6

Ingredients

1 lb baby carrots

1 medium onion, cut into wedges

6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

20 oz can unsweetened pineapple chunks

1/3 C brown sugar

1 T low sodium soy sauce

2t chicken bouillon

1/2 t salt

1/2 t ground ginger

1/4 t garlic powder

3 T cornstarch

1/4 C water

3 C cooked long grain rice

 

Instructions

In a 5 quart crockpot layer carrots and onion in slow cooker. Top with chicken.
Drain pineapple, reserving juice. Place pineapple chunks over chicken.
Mix together pineapple juice, brown sugar, soy sauce, chicken bouillon, salt, ginger, and garlic. Pour over top.
Cook on low 6-7 hours.
Combine cornstarch and water. Gradually stir into slow cooker. Cook for 30 minutes longer or until sauce is thickened.

 

My notes:

This was everyone approved. I didn't use 6 chicken breasts as the ones I had on hand were huge. I also used fresh pineapple instead of canned. I used 14oz diced pineapple and then 4oz of orange juice. I also added crushed red pepper flakes.

Black Beans and Yellow Rice

Black Beans and Yellow Rice
From: myrecipes.com
Ingredients
4 ounces dried black beans

Cooking spray

4 ounces Spanish chorizo, thinly sliced

6 cups water, divided

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided

1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 1/2 cups chopped onion

1 orange bell pepper, chopped

1 jalapeño pepper, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup uncooked long-grain rice

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

3 cups chopped fresh tomato

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions

1. Sort and wash beans; place in a bowl. Cover with water to 2 inches above beans; let stand 8 hours. Drain.
2. Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chorizo; sauté for 3 minutes. Add beans and 4 cups water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 2 1/2 hours or until beans are tender. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, and cumin.
3. Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add 1 1/2 cups onion, bell pepper, jalapeño, and garlic; cook 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and onion mixture into bean mixture.
4. Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt, rice, and turmeric. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until liquid evaporates and rice is tender. Spoon 3/4 cup rice into each of 4 bowls, and top each serving with about 2/3 cup bean mixture, 3/4 cup tomato, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cilantro.

My Notes
This was a success, I doubled the recipe so we would have leftovers! I added cumin (about 1 tsp) to the recipe mainly because I like cumin and I thought the recipe needed it. I also used brown rice instead of white. It is important to note that over cooking the pepper and onion will make your meal very mushy, they provide the crunch. I think adding carrots to this would be very good as well.

Asian Pork and 5-spice Apples

This is part of my cooking for a month series....
This was quite tasty and is definitely going on the keeper list. The great thing about pork tenderloin is it's a lean protein source. It's so versatile, there are limitless possibilities when it comes to preparing pork tenderloin. A trick I learned from AB is to remove the silver skin from the tenderloin. This clip shows how to do it.

Asian Pork and 5-spice Apples
Serves 8

2T black or balsamic vinegar
2T dry sherry
1T sesame oil
1T tamari
1T cracked black peppercorn
3T chopped fresh tarragon leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
2lbs boneless pork loin, cut into strips
2T canola oil
3 Golden Delicious apples, cored, halved, and sliced
1t Chinese 5 spice powder
2T packed brown sugar
1/4C freshly squeezed orange juice
1T cornstarch
3T minced chives
4C cooked brown rice

In a large bowl, whisk together vinegar, sherry, sesame oil, tamari, pepper corns, tarragon, and garlic.  Reserve 1/2C of the marinade and refrigerate.  Add pork and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours.
Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat, add apples, and stir-fry for 2 minutes.  Sprinkle with 5-spice powder, brown sugar, orange juice and continue to stir-fry for 2-3 minutes.
Remove pork from marinade, allowing excess to drip off.  Add pork to the work and cook, stirring often, for 2-3 minutes or until pork is cooked through.
Whisk cornstarch into reserved marinade and stir into pork mixture until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in chives. Cool completely (if freezing).

To Freeze
Place pork mixture and rice in 2 separate gallon bags and freeze.

To reheat
Defrost rice and pork mixture overnight (I do 24 hours). Preheat oven to 350. Place rice in a baking dish and cover with pork mixture.  Cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes or until heated through.


My notes
The math on this is off. The marinade doesn't make 1/2C of liquid so I'm not sure where they get that you can reserve a 1/2C of it. I used all the marinade, then pulled the pork out of the marinade and shook off the excess and used the left over for the sauce you make at the end. I also ended up marinating overnight due to unforseen laziness.
I did not freeze this so I cannot comment on how well it froze or reheated.

Better Than Takeout Asian Beef Strips

This is part of my cooking for a month series...
We had this recipe last night. Jeff and I found it to be somewhat bland* which is disappointing it seemed to have a lot of good flavors in it while I was making it. I would say this was not better than takeout but it was edible. The kid seemed to like it quite a bit.

*as I am typing this recipe I realized that I let out the red pepper flakes. So that might have had something to do with it.

Better Than Takeout Asian Beef Strips
1/2 C fresh squeezed orange juice
1 T minced orange zest
1 T minced fresh ginger
2 T rice wine vinegar
3 T shoyu
2 T honey
Pinch of hot red pepper flakes
2lbs flank steak, sliced diagonally into 1/4 in slices
1 T cornstarch
1 T canola oil
1 T sesame oil
4 C cooked brown basmati rice, cooled completely

In a large bowl, whisk together orange juice, orange zest, ginger, vinegar, shoyu, honey, and red pepper flakes. Place steak in bowl and toss to coat. Cover bowl and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Remove meat from the marinade and whisk cornstarch into marinade. Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Swirl to coat.

Stir-fry the meat for 2-3 minutes add the marinade and cook, stirring, until sauce is thickened. Drizzle with sesame oil. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

To freeze
Individual Servings: Divide steak and rice into 1qt freezer bags or freezer and microwave safe containers.

For a crowd
Place steak and rice in 2 separate 1 gallon freezer bags, removing as much air as possible before sealing.

To reheat
Let steak and rice thaw in fridge overnight.

Microwave method
Reheat individual servings in the microwave on high for 2-3 minutes or until heated through.

Oven method
Preheat oven to 350F. Place rice in a baking dish and top with steak.  Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes or until heated through.

My notes
I got this out of the freezer Sunday night after dinner. The rice was still rock hard when I got it out to start cooking at 5:30 yesterday. so that was a bit of a problem. I also didn't like the fact that there were no vegetables in this dish so I added some bell pepper. Jeff said mushrooms and onions would be good as well. I also used agave in place of honey as my honey had crystallized. Oh and my store doesn't have shoyu or basmati brown rice so I used soy sauce instead of shoyu and regular brown rice instead of basmati.