I seem to remember when I started this blog, there was a lot of cooking, baking, and recipes going on. Sometime last year, as life got complicated and stressful, I decided that some aspects of my life needed to be simplified. I don’t think it was a conscious decision to have making dinner on that list, but it seems over the past 6 months, I have relaxed a bit on the cooking…in a good way! It has been easy to share that responsibility with the BOY since he is home early some nights and loves to grill. This weekend, I had some spare time and was more than happy to get myself back into the kitchen for some cooking.
I made a few remakes of old recipes from the blog (if you haven’t seen my recipe page, it’s pretty expansive) and one new recipe from a cookbook. To keep things simple, I used a crockpot cookbook and a recipe that uses easy to find household ingredients.
This meal was planned for tonight, but I made it yesterday while I was embracing my productivity. This ended up working out well, so that the BOY could heat up his dinner when he got home from the library which is before I get home from work.
Except…that the BOY forgot whether he was supposed to eat the Indian or the Asian food in the fridge for dinner tonight. He went with the curry (don’t tell him that he ate eggplant, he doesn’t know), which left plenty of this delicious dinner for me!
Kung Pao Chicken
From Slow Cook It (a weight watchers cookbook)
Ingredients
3 Tbsp hoisin sauce
3 Tbsp sherry, dry or sweet (or sub in low sodium chicken broth)
3 Tbsp ketchup
2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp ginger root, thin strips peeled
1 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (adjust to make more or less spicy)
1 pound uncooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
8 oz canned water chestnuts, drained
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1package frozen stirfry veggies, thawed
Directions
Combine hoisin sauce, sherry, ketchup, soy sauce, ginger and red pepper flakes in a 5-6 quart slow cooker.
Stir in chicken and water chestnuts. Cover cook until chicken is tender 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. *I ended up cooking mine for about 5 hours on low.
About 20 minutes before cooking is complete, mix up cornstarch and water until smooth. Stir in cornstarch and veggies into slow cooker. Cover and cook on high until mixture simmers and thickens and veggies are tender (about 15 minutes).
Serve with brown rice or noodles.
