Slow-Cooked Honey Sesame Chicken (That Tastes Likes Pistachios)

So I woke up one morning, feeling like P. Diddy. So, as P. Diddy is apt to do (I imagine), I decided to throw some chicken in the crockpot to cook while hubby and I were at work. Thanks to Pinterest, I had lots of recipes to choose from, and I decided to go for The Recipe Critic's Skinny Slow-Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken. Seth and Dave both insisted that if you lightly took in a whiff of the dish and held it in your mouth briefly, you would taste pistachios. I have no idea. They were quite adamant, though. Let me know if you get the same reaction. 


Slow-Cooked Honey Sesame Chicken



2 lbs of chicken (I used bone-in thighs, and the meat just fell off the bone. Yum!)

2 cups of honey
1 cup of soy sauce
1/2 cup of ketchup
1/4 cup of oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
salt

pepper

red pepper
sesame seeds


Arrange the chicken in the crockpot, and lightly sprinkle some salt and pepper all over it.  In a medium/large bowl, mix the honey, soy sauce, ketchup, oil, garlic, and red pepper. Pour that goodness all over the chicken, set your slow cooker to low, and let it cook. Mine probably cooked for about 8 1/2 hours.


I served the chicken over some udon (Japanese noodles), drizzled lots of sauce over the noodles and chicken, and then sprinkled some sesame seeds on top of that. It was sooo good. The chicken was so tender and juicy and fall-off-the-boney...mm-mm good. It's actually kind of making me hungry now. With that, I'm signing off. My Thanksgiving adventure is forthcoming!

Odd Combinations

Odd Combinations are fun. They're not always the best idea in the kitchen, but on occasion, they seriously pay off. For example, last night was Sushi Night. I also made a Cinnamon Swirl Raisin bread for our breakfasts. That was a strange combination, our kitchen smelled funky for a bit, and I was moderately frazzled. Probably shouldn't have made the bread at the same time as the sushi. Ah, well. Both turned out well in the end. On the other end of the spectrum, however, Dave made a seriously awesome sauce for the sushi by just mixing random stuff together. So, there you go. I guess the moral of the story is don't multi-task? Or do. Just don't be surprised if it makes two things that are independently simple much more complicated.

Anyway.

Sushi!

As I've said before, my in-laws are amazing. Last year for Christmas, Dave's mom got us a gift certificate for a cooking class at Eurostoves in Beverly, so we decided to take a sushi-making class and feel accomplished. Spoiler alert: sushi is kind of absurdly easy to make.

Sushi rice!

First things first: Sushi Rice (these quantities make enough rice for about 6-7 sushi rolls)

3 cups of short-grain sushi rice
3 cups of water
2/3 cup of seasoned rice vinegar
4 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of kosher salt

The rice on the baking sheet

Rinse the rice in a colander (if you have one with small enough holes. I didn't for the longest time.) Then put the rice and water in a saucepan with a lid, and bring it to a boil on high. Once it's boiling like nobody's business, bring the heat down and just let it simmer. Once the water is fully absorbed, take the pan off the heat, and let it sit for 10 minutes (keep the lid on). Somewhere in this process, before the 10 minutes of sitting are done, mix the vinegar, sugar, and salt. After the 10 minutes, fluff the rice up with a fork (look how much rice you have! Go you!). Then, transfer the rice into a large bowl, and mix in the vinegar mixture. Now you're going to get your hands dirty. Flatten out the rice onto a baking/cookie sheet. Either set up your sheet of rice in front of a fan, or fan it yourself until it's cool and kind of shiny. Once it's cool, cover all of it with a damp paper towel.

Dave's Special Sushi Sauce

grated lemongrass, to taste
Sriracha sauce, to taste
Thai sweet chili dipping sauce, to taste

Mix that stuff! If it tastes good, it's done. You can drizzle it over your rolls, into rolls, dip your rolls in it, dip your sashimi in it...it's pretty great.

Stuff you can put in your rolls
ANYTHING YOU WANT!! (Just chop it as thin and long as you can)

When you're using raw fish, make sure you get Sushi-grade stuff. I joke not. Do it. For fish, we used tilapia and tuna. We also had some lovely cucumber, avocado, and imitation crabmeat.

How to Roll Sushi

Before you do anything else, you will want to cover your sushi rolling mat with plastic wrap. The roll will stick less, and it makes clean-up SO much easier! You're also going to want to prep a bowl of water to rinse your hands in. Sushi rice is crazy sticky. Lay a sheet of nori (seaweed) down on your mat, and press a thin layer of rice over the whole sheet, except for about an inch at the top of the sheet. Now you want to lay a thin row of whatever you want in your roll down about an inch from the edge facing you. Here's the fun part: you're now going to start the roll by taking the edge of the mat nearest you and tucking it as close as possible to where your stuffing ends. Give it a small squeeze to make it stick, and gently roll that little roll onto the rest of the nori. It's much easier to demonstrate than it is to write about! Theoretically, if my directions are adequate, you'll have a fairly solid tube of seaweed, rice, veggies, and fish. (It makes a fairly decent club, if you need to defend yourself, as well.) Now, all you have to do is wrap that up in plastic wrap and refrigerate it til you're ready to eat it! When you're ready to eat it, dip your knife in a bit of warm water (this somewhat prevents the rice from sticking to the blade) and cut your rolls into tasty bite-sized pieces of sushi. Or you could just do what I do when I eat my leftover sushi at work: gnaw at it like it's a little Japanese burrito. It's super classy, and no one will ever judge you for eating your sushi that way.

Cinnamon Swirl Raisin Bread (adapted from A Whisk and A Prayer's Cinnamon Sugar Bread)

1 1/3 cup sugar
(at least) 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk (I used vanilla flavored coconut milk, as we've decided to forego fast-spoiling cow milk for equally tasty coconut or almond milk)
1/3 cup canola oil
Raisins. However many you have or want.

Preheat your oven to 350. I like to preheat the oven as soon as I get home from work. That way, the apartment is already warm when I get back in from walking the dog, and I don't have to impatiently wait any more for the oven. We all win! Anyway. Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan. Now, you'll want to mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and 1 cup of sugar in a bowl. Once it's well-mixed, go ahead and mix in the egg, milk and oil until there aren't anymore dry clumps. Bonus: you don't have to use a mixer on this one! One less thing to clean later! Pour half the batter in the pan. In a small bowl, mix the rest of the sugar with the cinnamon. The original recipe called for 2 teaspoons, but I love me some cinnamon, so I put a bunch more in until the mixture looked almost like sparkly red dirt. Sprinkle your cinnamon mixture over the batter. Try to cover everything in the goodness. Now, pour the rest of the batter on top of all that. To swirl the cinnamon, I used a fork to mess up the layers a bit, kind of like marbling a cake. After that, I sprinkled a little more cinnamon and sugar on top of the loaf, and into the oven it went! Not five minutes after I put the loaf in, Dave asked if I had put raisins in it. I hadn't, but it was a pretty dang good idea, so I went on a hunt for raisins. I managed to scrounge up one of those tiny little snack boxes that maybe holds 10 raisins. Eh, good enough! I pulled the loaf out of the oven, and sprinkled the shriveled little guys on top, and threw it back in. Good call, hubby! Next time, I'll be sure to have a more substantial amount of raisins.

Expletive Salmon

For this blog's inaugural dish, I adapted 'My Life as a Mrs.'s Sweet Potato Crusted Fish w/ Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette. (Her original post is here.) Our friend (and one of my main taste-testers), Seth, insisted that I name this dish 'Expletive Salmon', since the reaction he had to the finished product is not quite fit to print.

Expletive Salmon! (Adapted from Sweet Potato Crusted Fish with Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette)



Yeah. It looks pretty nasty before you blend it.



Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette:
1 cup chopped cilantro

1 clove garlic
1/4 cup lime juice

1/4 cup grated lemongrass

1/4 cup light olive oil
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
pinch of sugar (1/2 tsp)

Either throw all the ingredients in a blender or a food processor until everything is well-mixed and there are no clumps left. Taste it! I had plenty left over, as well, so hello, salad dressing!



This picture really doesn't do it justice.



Fish:
1 pound salmon (I used a huge steak, but the original recipe calls for filets, so I doubt it matters)

2 large peeled and finely shredded sweet potato



1 egg plus 2 egg whites
1/2 cup flour - seasoned with a little salt & pepper
2 TBS canola oil
2 TBS butter

a splash of hot sauce



Add flour to a plate or bowl (the key is to use a dish large enough to fit a whole piece of your fish; I did not do this) and season with salt and pepper. In another one, whisk together 1 egg plus 2 egg whites and a splash of hot sauce (a trick I'm stealing from HerSouthernGreatness Paula Deen's fried chicken).

Preheat oven to 375°. Melt the butter with the oil in whatever dish you're planning to cook the fish in. I used my casserole dish (I have a thing with cooking meats in the same dishes that I use for desserts), but you could use pretty much any oven-safe pan or sheet with edges.

Arrange a fairly generous fish-shaped layer of shredded sweet potato in the pan.



Coat your fish thoroughly in the flour mixture, then dunk it in the egg mixture, then once more back into the flour. Place the fish over the sweet potato in the pan, and toss it in the oven for about 4 minutes.



Take the pan out of the oven, pick up the fish (and as much of the sweet potato as you can get) with a spatula, and lay down another layer of sweet potato in the pan. Gently flip the other (non-sweet-potato-d) side of the fish onto the new bed of shred (yay, rhyming!). Put the fish back in the oven and cook it for another 5-7 minutes (you want it to be opaque all the way through). I squeezed a bit of lime over everything about 3 minutes into the second round of cooking. I don't know that it made much of a difference in the taste, but it sure smelled amazing!

Once the fish is thoroughly cooked, drizzle (or douse) the vinaigrette over your fish, and enjoy! I served the meal with some rice noodles tossed with garlic and olive oil, but I'm sure it would be amazing with a salad or just plain, too!

Side note: I'm on the hunt for our camera charger so I can take more pictures of the process. Hubby says he knows where it is. We shall see.



Christmas isn't the only reason to not hate winter.

My poor little tropical bones have a serious problem with winter.
It's cold. It's dark.
Solidified water falls from the sky, and we still have to get out of bed and go to work.
Everyone forgets how to drive.
People get trampled at Walmart.
You have to wear lots of layers, and somehow this always means gaining weight.
Commercialism is unabashedly in full swing.

But winter isn't all bad.
In spite of all the crazy, Christmas is still the greatest. I, for one, can't wait to break out the carols.
Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK!
Time off work = time with family. And my in-laws are pretty spectacular.
The fact that it's cold outside means that when I use my oven, it's pleasantly warm in our apartment, and not stiflingly, unbearably hot.
This makes me want to cook and bake.
This makes me want to share.
This makes me create a blog.
This is a double-whammy creative outlet that my soul desperately needs.

Enjoy, internet.

AND!! Winter means Trader Joe's Christmas Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea!!! The sighting of this goodness when we went grocery shopping inspired joyful dancing on my part and shame/humiliation on dear hubby's. Poor guy.

Look! It's a lemur drinking tea!