Hawaiian Chicken over Rice

I made this recipe a while back, maybe a month ago. And I'm not sure why I haven't posted it yet. I guess I just forgot, and I apologize!

Because the only word I can use to describe this is YUM! And maybe the word easy would work too. :)

This recipe was inspired by one from Six Sisters' Stuff

4 chicken breasts
1/2 cup bbq sauce
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1/2 cup water
12 oz can pineapple

1. Put chicken breasts, bbq sauce, teriyaki, water and pineapple into the crock pot.
2. Cook on low for about 5-6 hours or on high for about 3, until chicken is cooked thoroughly and shreddable.
3. Shred chicken and return to the crock pot while you cook the rice.
4. Cook rice according to package directions in a pot, or with a rice cooker.
5. Serve rice topped with chicken mixture and lots of sauce.

Enjoy.

Coconut Crusted Chicken with Orange Marmalade Sauce

Nate's family absolutely loves seafood. One summer his family went to North Carolina to stay at a beach house for a week and they had a seafood fest. There is an ongoing debate on how much money they spent on said seafood fest, but they know it was at least 150 dollars, maybe even 250. Anyway, the reason I am giving you this information is because when Nate used to go home for breaks his family would have him make coconut shrimp for them. Last Christmas when we were visiting his family he made this dish for them, and unfortunately because I don't like shrimp, or really any seafood in general, I didn't eat any. But it looked pretty amazing. So, recently I told Nate that we needed to try coconut crusted chicken.

And finally this last week we made this chicken. And it was delicious. Especially with the orange marmalade sauce we made for a dip. We decided to bake the chicken, but for even more crunch you could also pan fry the chicken in a little oil.


Coconut Crusted Chicken Strips
1 lb chicken (approx 2 breast)
1/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes
3 graham cracker sheets
Juice from 1/2 orange
2 eggs



1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Beat egg with orange juice in a small bowl.
3. Using a food processor, process 2 of the graham crackers into fine crumbs.
4. Crumble the third graham cracker using your hands.
5. Combine graham cracker crumbs and coconut in a small bowl.
6. Cut chicken breasts into strips.
7. Dry chicken pieces using paper towels.
8. Cover chicken pieces in flour.
9. Dip chicken in egg mixture
10. Dip chicken in coconut/graham mixture and cover.
11. Spray a cookie sheet with non stick spray, or grease with butter.
12. Bake chicken about 15 minutes, (until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees)
13. Enjoy chicken dipped in or topped with the orange marmalade sauce.

Orange Marmalade Sauce

1/3 cup marmalade
Juice from 1/2 orange

2 tsp soy sauce

1. In a small sauce pan combine marmalade , orange juice and soy sauce.
2. Heat over medium low heat for a few minutes, until sauce reaches desired thickness.

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Chicken Enchilada Nachos

 Finally! I made a recipe for you. This recipe is originally from Campbell's Kitchen. We've been in our house for over a week now, and things are starting to come together. We still have a few boxes to unpack and things to organize, but we absolutely love being in OUR home, and have no complaints against it so far. (Ps. I'm not looking forward to the first thing going wrong in our house, at least the seller gave us a 2 year home warranty, right?)

This recipe is amazingly easy and fast, so when you don't have a lot of time (like our life for the past couple weeks, this is a good recipe to go to).

1 can (12.5) chicken breast, drained

1 can  (12.5oz) black beans, rinsed and drained 

1 can (12.5 oz) corn, drained

1 can(10.75 oz) cream of mushroom soup

1 can (4 oz) diced green chiles

1 TBS chili powder

tortilla chips

shredded cheese

1. Combine black beans, corn, cream of mushroom soup, green chiles, and chili powder in a medium sized sauce pan over medium heat for a few minutes, until hot and bubbling.
2. Arrange chips on a large plate (or two).
3. Spread chicken mixture over chips.
4. Sprinkle cheese on top of chicken mixture and chips.
5. Microwave for about 1 minute, until cheese is melted.

6. Enjoy. **

**You could also top this olives, avocados, jalapeno, green onions, cilantro etc.

I actually halved this recipe because I knew it would be way too much for Nate and I alone, and we still had sauce leftover that Nate used as a chip dip last night. It is a little bit of an awkward recipe to halve though, just so you, we used half cans of everything (except the chicken was a smaller can, and I didn't halve the green chiles) -- anyway, if you have other recipes to use corn and black beans and things then you could totally halve this recipe, or if you're making it for more people just keep it as. 

It was delicious and SO simple. So make this and enjoy.

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Orange Chicken.

After a few failed attempts at making good Chinese food from home, we had almost completely given up hope that it was possible. When we've attempted in the past we tried to get past the 'completely breaded and deep fried meat' idea. And that my friends is where our problem was. Chinese food in its greatest form is meant to be deep friend and then smothered in a tasty sauce. Or at least American Chinese food.

And so that is where we decided to change our ideas, and even if our recipe wouldn't be the healthiest Chinese food in the world (what Chinese food really is healthy anyway) it would at least be delicious. And this recipe is where we found our success.

Its not like we'll be making this recipe once a week or anything, but any time I want American Chinese food, my taste buds and my stomach would be equal (or more) happy with this orange chicken than if we ordered in from a restaurant.

Slightly adapted from these two recipes : Blogchef and the Noshery

2 large chicken breasts
2 eggs
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup corn starch

¼ tsp pepper

¼ tsp salt

2 cups panko

1 cup water

2 tbs orange juice concentrate

2 ½ tbs soy sauce

1/3 cup rice vinegar

1 cup brown sugar

Zest from ½ orange

½ tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp ground red pepper

½ tsp garlic

2 ½ tbs cornstarch

¼ cup water

1. Preheat your deep fryer or a pan filled with oil to 350-375 degrees.
2. Cut chicken into inch sized pieces.
3. Make 3 separate bowls. One with your eggs and water, whipped. Second with flour, cornstarch, salt and pepper, combined. And third with panko crumbs.
4. Dip pieces of chicken first in eggs, then in flour mixture, then in eggs again, then in panko. Set aside.

5. Meanwhile combine water, orange juice concentrate, soy sauce and vinegar in a sauce pan. Heat over medium for a few minutes.

6. Add brown sugar, orange zest, ground ginger, garlic and red pepper. Bring to a boil.
7. Combine cornstarch and water in a small bowl and add to boiling sauce mixture.
8. Keep the sauce over medium heat and stir occasionally until it thickens.
9. When the oil is heated add a few pieces of chicken to the oil. (We cooked the chicken in 3 batches)
10. Cook chicken pieces for 3 to 4 minutes until the color is golden brown.

11. As you remove the chicken from the oil place it on a paper towel lined plate.
12.  Pour the sauce over your chicken.
13. Enjoy on top of some delicious white rice.

Please please please let me know if you have any questions regarding this recipe, or if you had any problems while making it. I want this recipe to be as great of a success for you, as it was for me.

Before this recipe I had almost given up completely on making Chinese food from home. This recipe renewed my faith. I hope it can do the same for you.

What is a food that you are afraid of making?

Chinese food was definitely one of these foods for me. Now that I've made this delicious recipe, however, I feel like I can conquer anything.

Creamy Chicken and Broccoli over Rice

Usually when I think of crock pot dinners I think of 'easy'. However there are actually many crock pot meals that require a lot of extra steps outside of just throwing your food in the crock pot. You know the ones where you have to cook your meat before and then you have to add stuff after, and bake it in the oven too. Now, I don't really have a problem with having to do these things, because they really have turned out to be some of my favorite meals. But sometimes I just want to throw everything in the crock pot and then come home 8 hours later and eat it. 

This recipe falls somewhere in the middle of the easiest and the hardest crock pot meals, leaning closer to the easy side. The only extra step really is cooking your rice on the side, and then adding the broccoli and sour cream at the end. But once again, I hope you trust me, because for this warm scrumptious dinner. Its worth it.

3 chicken breasts
1 can of cream of cheese soup
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cajun seasoning
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1 cup of sour cream
2 cups of broccoli


1. Put everything except sour cream and broccoli in the crock pot.
2. Cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 4.
3. Shred the chicken breasts with two forks.
4. In a rice cooker (or however you like) cook about 4 cups of rice.
5. Meanwhile, add broccoli to the crock pot and stir in.
6. Cook for another 30 minutes.
7. Stir in sour cream with the crock pot mixture.
8. Enjoy over a bowl of rice.

This was a perfect meal to warm us up on a chilly autumn day. We had enough creamy chicken mixture that we froze half of it and each enjoyed a BIG bowl.

Makes four servings.

Chicken Kebabs with Sweet Peanut Sauce

After being slightly inspired by this recipe from the Apron Gal, I knew we didn't have any peanut butter, but we decided we could make an even simpler version of a peanut sauce with what we did have at home. And although this recipe may be one of the easiest things to make, that doesn't downgrade its delicious taste one bit. Also, remember here you asked me for simple and easy recipes, and chicken recipes, so here's a combination of the two.

1 1/2 cups Yoshida's Sauce
1/2 cup Peanut Sauce
3-4 chicken breasts
kebab sticks

1. Preheat charcoal, gas or electric grill.
2. Cut chicken breasts into small strips or pieces.
3. Put chicken pieces onto skewers. (Remember not to stuff the skewer to full, because leaving space between the pieces of chicken will allow the chicken to cook quicker and more evenly)
4. Combine Yoshida's Sauce and Peanut Sauce in a small bowl.
5. Slightly coat chicken in sauce with a basting brush.
6. Place chicken kebabs on hot grill.
7. Rotate about 4 times, so all sides cook evenly, basting with sauce each time you rotate.
8. Cook until chicken is white in the middle, or reaches a temperature of 165 degrees.

 

Nate and I both thought this tasted so good. And Nate even went on to say "this tastes like the typical Asian flavor, that you never know what's in it, but you just know its delicious." 

Enjoy!

Sun-Dried Tomato and Artichoke Chicken Spaghetti

This is not the fabulous recipe that Aimee has promised for the weekend, but I owed you one.  Aimee does such a wonderful job keeping up this blog.  I am really grateful to her.  So I finally come through on my turn. I hope you enjoy this, we did.

I got this recipe from my niece Britney off her mom's site Grain Crazy.  I tweaked it slightly to fit our family.

Ingredients:

5 chicken tenderloins (seasoned with salt and pepper, other spices if you like them, such as paprika, onion powder, garlic salt)
12 oz. of spaghetti noodles (you can use fettuccine or linguine if you want)
1 c. sun-dried tomatoes (in oil, but drained)
1 1/2 c. artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
salt and pepper to taste
3 tsp. basil
Parmesan cheese


Directions:

1. Grill your chicken tenderloins and cut into bite-size pieces.

2. Start your spaghetti in a large pot of boiling water (follow package directions)

3. Put your tomatoes and artichokes and spices in a large saucepan and simmer together, stirring occasionally.

4. When your spaghetti is finished, drain.
5. Add all the ingredients together and serve.

6. Top with Parmesan cheese.

This was enough for 2 whole meals for Craig and I and 2 lunch meals for Craig and I.  It was ALOT, but we really liked it.

Chicken Caesar Salad Pitas

 
I really love Caesar salad. I love going to a restaurant and ordering a side Caesar salad to go with my meal. But want to know something funny? I actually don't like getting Caesar salad at really fancy restaurants. At least it seems like whenever I do the dressing tastes way too different. I think because its homemade/fresh. And I don't like it at all. I've had homemade Caesar dressing at people's houses and I don't like it there either. I'm all about the preservatives, baby. (Okay, not really, I think in homemade dressing people put too many anchovies)

But really. I love Caesar dressing from a bottle or a jar. And that's what I used for this recipe. But if you don't like bottled Caesar dressing, feel free to make your own. I just really don't like that stuff one bit.

This is another recipe, where I was inspired of of Pinterest. But, its too simple of a recipe to change much of anything. So here's my inspiration. And here's my recipe:

Chicken Caesar Salad Pitas
1 head of romaine lettuce
2 chicken breasts, seasoned
1/2 cup croutons
4 slices of bacon
8 oz caesar dressing
pitas

1. Grill chicken breast until cooked.
2. Cut chicken breasts into inch sized pieces.
3. Cook bacon until crispy.
4. Crumble into pieces

5. Cut or tear lettuce head into inch sized pieces.
6. In a large mixing bowl, put lettuce, chicken, croutons, bacon and Caesar dressing.

7. Stir to combine.
8. Stuff pita pockets with salad mixture.

9. Enjoy.

This was really tasty, even for Nate who doesn't really like salad. We put a lot of chicken in it, so I think that helped him to like it more.

  Do you prefer bottled Caesar dressing or homemade?

Chicken Taco Salad

It was 11:30 and we had just gotten home from church.  I felt like I was starving, breakfast had been 5 hours ago and it was light, consisting of a vanilla instant breakfast.  I didn't want to just eat junk and wait several hours for dinner so I thought what can I make quickly and also with items that I would probably throw out in a few days if not eaten today. 

Ta Da..... Chicken Taco Salad  (I know this is nothing creative but it was quick and easy and that is what I was looking for)

Ingredients:

chicken tenderloins
yellow or white onion
yellow, red or orange pepper
tomatoes
lettuce
pinto beans
avocado
cheddar cheese
sour cream
salsa
tortilla chips
cumin
chili powder
paprika
salt

Amounts depend on the size of your family and how much you like of each item.  I made enough for Craig and I and 1 small leftover salad for Craig's lunch tomorrow.

I used 4 tenderloins - cut bite sized.  1/4 of a pepper - chopped bite size.  1/6 of a large yellow onion chopped bite size.  Add all these to a frying pan and cook until done.  While sauteing sprinkle with the spices to taste.

While chicken, onions and peppers are cooking - tear lettuce into bite size pieces (we used about 1/2 of a romaine lettuce head), chopped tomatoes into bite size pieces (I used 3 small tomatoes), open can of pinto beans and drain, (sometimes I use kidney beans or black beans but I saw the pinto first in the pantry),  peel and cut avocado (1 small to medium avocado was used) and grate cheese (I had about 3/4 cup of grated cheese).

I put each item in their own serving bowl and placed it on the table. Sometimes I used chili cheese Fritos but today was the last handfuls at the bottom of the Costco Kirtland Tortilla Strips.  Yes, they were a little crumbled and broken already but you break them up for your salad anyway.




back row - chicken, onions and peppers
next row - avocado, tomatoes, pinto beans, lettuce
front row - cheese, tortilla chips



Close up of the chicken, onions, peppers and spices

Assembly your salad as you please, topping with salsa and sour cream.  If you have thousand island dressing you might try it as your dressing, it is a different taste but I personally really like it.  We just didn't have any in the house.




Assembled salad, ready to eat

 This meal was prepared from freezer (the chicken needed defrosting) to table in 30 minutes or less. Quick, easy and uses yummy vegetables.

Ground Chicken Burgers

So, as mentioned here, I got 4 new kitchen aid attachments for my birthday. And one of them was the meat grinder attachment. So the first thing we decided to make was ground chicken burgers. Now, I have actually never had a burger that wasn't made of ground beef (no turkey burgers or anything), so I wasn't exactly sure if I would like a chicken burger. But after a few bites of getting used to the different texture, this burger tasted great. We ate our chicken burgers plain so that we could really see how the burger itself tasted, but of course this would taste great topped with any of your favorite sandwich or hamburger toppings.

1 lb ground chicken
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 onion, diced finely
1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/2 TBS seasonal all
1/4 TBS onion salt
1/2 TBS garlic salt
1 TBS salt
1/2 TBS mesquite BBQ seasoning
 ranch dressing

1. Preheat grill (charcoal, electric or gas)
2. Place all ingredients, except ranch, in a large mixing bowl and mix together with hands or a wooden spoon.
3. Divide chicken mixture into 4ths.
4. Form mixture into patties.
5. Cook patties over grill as you would a hamburger, flipping occasionally.
6. Coat burgers with a little ranch dressing each time you flip them to keep them from drying out.
7. Chicken burgers are done when their temperature reaches 165 degrees. **
8. Enjoy.

**Even if you didn't win our giveaway this morning for the meat thermometer you can buy your own from amazon here.

Enjoy this chicken burger as a healthier alternative to the traditional groundbeef burger.

What are some healthy alternatives/substitutes that your family likes to make?

Chicken Drop Dumplings

So last week when I asked about your favorite crock pot meal, my friend Jessie gave me the recommendation of chicken and dumplings. Now I had actually never made dumplings, and didn’t really grow up eating them much because my mom didn’t like the texture of the dough, and though it tasted uncooked, so I maybe only had them twice growing up when someone else made dinner for me. But even with my lack of experience I trust Jessie and decided to ask her for her recipe. And although (like I said) I’m no “dumpling expert” these turned out pretty good. And Nate even said they were just as they should be. 

So now I’m sharing the recipe with you. This recipe was super easy, as all my favorite crock pot recipes are. These dumplings are considered “drop dumplings” because I made them with canned biscuit dough. But if you want to make “noodle dumplings” you could replace the biscuits with shredded tortilla strips. (Apparently this type is more popular in the south). Sounds yum!

2 chicken breasts, halved

2 TBS butter or margarine

2 (10 oz) cans condensed cream of chicken soup

½ yellow onion, finely diced

1 can biscuits (If you are using large biscuits like Pillsbury, cut them each in half or quarters. I used a can of 10 smaller biscuits and it seemed fine, though I may even choose to cut these into pieces next time to make it better).

1. Place the chicken breasts, butter, soup and onion in a slow cooker.
2. Fill with enough water to cover, about 1 ½ cups
3. Cover and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.
4. 30 minutes before serving place biscuits in the slow cooker
5. Cook about 30 minutes until the dough is no longer raw in the middle.