Crock-Pot Sticky Chicken

Today I had the day off work as the start of my Christmas break. My vacation activities included a doctor's appointment, picking up my child from swim practice and taking her to her friend's house, a two-hour drive to get my brother-in-law from the airport and take him to his mother's, a trip to Aldi and a full cart of groceries to buy and put away, three days' worth of dishes to wash, the whole house to vacuum, and supper to make. How relaxing!

As you can imagine, when it was time to make dinner I was awfully glad I had a Crock-Pot meal planned. This one was as easy as most slow cooker meals, but tasted even better thanks to the final few minutes of oven-broiling that turned the sauce into a sweet, crispy crust.  The thighs were great, but I'm sure any type of chicken you like would be fine.
  

Crock -Pot Sticky Chicken

Prep time: 5 min  Cook time: 4 hrs

Serves 6

3 lbs chicken thigh

3/4 cup brown sugar, divided

1/4 cup soy sauce, divided

1 tsp ground ginger

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/4 cup tomato paste

1/4 cup water

Combine 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, ginger, and garlic in the slow cooker. Add chicken and stir to coat evenly. Cook chicken for 4 hours on low or until done. 

Meanwhile, combine remaining 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, water, and tomato paste to create the sauce. When chicken is done, place on a lined cookie sheet and brush all sides with sauce.

 Broil in the oven for about 5 minutes or until desired crispness.  

403 calories per serving.  Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list! 

Thai Delight

I have been looking for a new perfume for years. Every time I find one I like I ask my husband if he likes it, and every time he says the same thing, "I don't know."

Soooo frustrating! How can you not know if you like something? We went shopping tonight and he said that about half a dozen different perfumes, so I was getting pretty annoyed. When we got hoe, the house still smelled delectably of the amazing dinner we had. His comment? "Man, that still smells good! You should get some perfume that smells like this!"

He may not know what perfume he likes, but he sure does appreciate a good dinner, and this is definitely a good one!

Thai Delight
Total time: 15 min
Serves 4

4 cups cooked Jasmine rice
2 Tbs oil
1 cup green onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp crushed ginger
12 oz shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 bag (16 oz) frozen stir fry veggies
3 Tbs Thai pesto*
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs fish sauce
3/4 cup coconut milk
2 tsp honey
1/4 cup chopped cilantro, if desired

In a wok, fry the green onions, garlic and ginger in oil until fragrant, 1-2 minutes.  Add the vegetables and shrimp. Stir fry till veggies are crisp tender and shrimp is pink.

Add the pesto, soy sauce, fish sauce, coconut milk and honey. Allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Serve over rice. Garnish with chopped cilantro, if desired.

*If you have trouble finding Thai pesto in the store, you can easily make your own with this quick and easy recipe!

Thai Pesto
1 bunch cilantro
1/4 cup peanut butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil   
2 Tbs minced fresh ginger
1 1/2 Tbs fish sauce
1 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree till smooth.  This makes more than you will need for the Thai Delight recipe, but you can easily freeze the rest for later.

Customizable Pudding Cookies

It's cookie-baking time! I am so excited about Christmas this year. I spend every other year up in Indiana, visiting my family, which is nice, but it means I don't get to celebrate much at home. I don't usually decorate or bake or even do much shopping on the years I go up North, so the years I stay home I really look forward to all those traditions.

I was definitely in the Christmas mood this year and I have to admit I went a little crazy. I spent several days (and more than several dollars) shopping for decorations and decking every inch of my home for Christmas, I spent hours perusing Pinterest for the perfect holiday menu, and I spent the entire day yesterday making batch after batch of scrumptious Christmas cookies in every variety imaginable. Here's the result!

My favorite cookies ended up being the two different kinds of pudding cookies I made, so I wanted to share this versatile cookie recipe with you right away so you can make your own batch of yummy treats!  The basic recipe is always the same, but you can choose your own flavor of pudding and pick any combination of add-ins to design your own unique creation!

Customizable Pudding Cookies
Prep time: 15 min  Bake time: 10 min
Serves 36

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 (3.4 oz) pkg white chocolate instant pudding mix
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour (11.25 oz - weigh for best results) 
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups chopped Winter Oreos (the kind with red cream)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips


Preheat oven to 350 F.  For best results, use an oven thermometer to verify the accuracy of your oven temperature.  It may be off by as much as 50 degrees and that will significantly affect your results!

In as medium bowl, whisk together baking soda, salt and flour.  This thoroughly incorporates the leavening agent so your cookies bake evenly.  Set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars, 1-3 minutes.

Beat in dry instant pudding mix.  Add eggs and vanilla and beat until well-mixed.

Add flour mixture and beat just until incorporated.  Do not overbeat! You should still see a little bit of visible flour here and there. Overbeating will ruin the texture your cookies.

Gently stir in Oreos, white chocolate chips, and Andes Peppermint Crunch baking chips just until incorporated. (What that picture-perfect look you see in all those blog pics?  Save a few of the mix-ins and press them into the top after rolling the dough into balls.)

Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes. This keeps the dough from spreading too much in the oven.

Roll into 1" balls and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet that is either greased or lined with parchment paper or a Silpat. (Can we take a minute to talk about Silpats? If you don't have one, go buy one right now! They are so incredibly useful. They function as a washable, reusable, nonstick pan liner and can be used just about any time you would use grease, foil, or parchment paper. I bought some brand-name ones for about $25 each, then I bought some generic ones for $5 at Aldi and they both work exactly the same.) 

Bake at 350 F for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should come out of the oven when the edges are slightly golden, the top is puffy but no longer shiny, and the cookie looks a little underdone.

Let cookies cool on the pan for 2 minutes (this finishes the cooking process,) then transfer to a cooling rack.

Chocolate Cherry Variation

For these, I followed the recipe above, but I used chocolate pudding mix instead of white chocolate. I omitted the Oreos and the peppermint chips and used a 9 oz bag of Nestle's DelightFulls Cherry Filled morsels along with 1 cup of holiday striped white chocolate morsels. They were awesome! Feel free to try any combination of baking chips you like. The have several varieties of these filled chips and I fully intend to try all of them!