Crock Pot Adobo

My husband went on a mini crusade lately, to make two of the dishes that his mother made when he was growing up. One of them was mole, which I'll post later, and the other was adobo.

I had never had adobo before. Apparently it can be made with beef, pork, shellfish, or more popularly chicken. We made it with chicken and in the crock pot. It's a very vinegary and garlicky dish and is great served over rice.

This was a super delicious meal and I loved it. I'm so glad that my hubby introduced me to it. It also made fabulous leftovers! Maybe even better than when it was freshly cooked.



Ingredients:
1 1/3 medium onion sliced (we did a mix of yellow and red)
13 1/3 garlic cloves, crushed
7/8 cup soy sauce
1 2/3 cups chicken broth
7/8 cup vinegar
3 1/3 bay leaves
1/2 tsp pepper
5 lbs chicken pieces

Steps:
Remove skin from chicken and sear all sides quickly on high in a pan of oil.
Place chicken in crock pot, then onions, then the rest of the ingredients.
Cook on low 6-8 hours.

Serve over rice. Pour the liquid from crock pot over the rice, too. Remove the bay leaves before serving.

We also cooked our rice with a chicken bouillon cube in the water. We do this most of the time.

Cajun baked chicken stuffed with pepper jack cheese and bacon

I originally saw this on Pinterest and added it to my meal plan for this week. My fiancé and I loved it. My 5 year old thought it was too spicy, so next time I'll season her piece a bit differently.

You can find the original recipe at this link - http://cuckooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/cajun-chicken-with-pepper-jack-cheese.html?m=1 - or you can check out mine below (with very subtle changes).

2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
8 oz pepper jack cheese, shredded
1 c frozen spinach, thawed and drained (you can also use fresh cooked spinach)
extra light olive oil
2.5 tbsp Cajun seasoning
1.5 tbsp Italian breadcrumbs
salt and black pepper, to taste
Lots of toothpicks


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Flatten the chicken as much as possible.

In a medium bowl, combine the pepper jack cheese, spinach, salt and pepper.

Combine the Cajun seasoning and breadcrumbs together in a small bowl.

Spoon about 1/4 c of the spinach mixture onto each chicken breast. Roll or fold each chicken breast tightly and fasten the seams with several toothpicks. I used about 5 toothpicks in each. Be sure to count how many total toothpicks were used.

Brush each chicken breast with the olive oil. Sprinkle the Cajun seasoning mixture evenly over all. Sprinkle any remaining spinach and cheese on top of chicken (optional).

Place the chicken seam-side down onto a baking sheet with any open side facing up. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

Remove the toothpicks before serving. Count to make sure you have removed every last toothpick.

I paired this with garlic bread and some veggies (zucchini, bell pepper, onion, etc) in a marinara sauce.

Alfredo chicken (crockpot)

I saw a pin on Pinterest for two ingredient crockpot meals and got the idea for this. It was delicious! Could maybe use a little bit more in the spices category, but it was also great as is.

4 frozen chicken breasts,
6 red potatoes quartered,
Ground black pepper,
Minced onion,
Garlic flavored seasoning salt,
Bertolli Alfredo sauce,
Crockpot on high for 6 hours.

I'd probably do low if the breasts were thawed, but I hadn't preplanned. And the spices were just eyeballed. I added them once (as pictured) and then again once more after 3 or 4 hours (I stirred up the sauce a little bit and then added more). Also, to get all the sauce from the jar, I added some milk and shook it up, then added that in initially - a trick I learned from my mom (with red sauces I just use water).

WFD: August 8, 2011 - Chicken, pasta, asparagus

I wanted to make a nice dinner for my dad (and the rest of the family) to thank him for fixing the latch on the trunk of my car, and this is what I came up with...

First I marinated the chicken (I think it was 6 boneless, skinless breasts) in this:

1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper (ground)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup white wine

We don't keep fresh herbs in the house, but we have a TON of dried herbs and spices, so that's what I use.  After marinating the chicken for about 3 hours, I cooked them a bit on both sides (in a grill pan) until they became opaque on those sides, then I popped them into the oven to finish cooking. I had preheated the oven to 370 degrees (Fahrenheit) and baked them for 25 minutes (covered in foil for 20, and uncovered for the last 5), checking them periodically. They stayed really moist which was my goal, and they weren't over or underdone, so hurray!

For side dishes, I just did a rotini pasta with a garlic butter sauce (just butter and garlic powder, honestly) and some veggies in it, and then some steamed asparagus with grated Parmesan cheese on it. The vegetables are all frozen ones.

Normally I'm more of a crock pot person/casserole, so while this isn't a fancy meal, it's not my usual thing. I still baked the chicken versus grilling or boiling or anything, but it went over well.

Leftovers for lunch!

Last night we had lemon-herb chicken for dinner, and we had a couple of leftover breasts. Today for lunch I decided to make some rice, saute some mushrooms, shred a leftover breast, and mix it all together. Great lunch! And I've got a lot of leftover!

Sauteing the mushrooms with some olive oil spray

I used pre-sliced baby portobello mushrooms

Rice in the rice cooker, which I added a little extra light olive oil to while cooking

Leftover breast, about to get shredded!

And final product. Delish!

Dinner idea: lemon herb chicken

This was our dinner last night... Lemon-herb chicken, chicken stuffing with chicken gravy, and green beans. Very easy! Just coat the chicken (we used a store-bought mix), fry it up, boil the water and add it to the stuffing mix, and then steam the green beans. Mmm.