Crock Pot Orange Chicken

So, continuing with the whole homemade Chinese take out thing, this week I made Orange Chicken! The crock pot version.

This was all pretty simple and straightforward, considering I did almost the exact same thing last week. Except this time, the sauce was different, and the chicken was just coated in flour instead of the cornstarch/egg mixture.

And honestly, I don’t know how much the crock pot did. It looked the exact same as it did when I put it in (you have to cook the chicken before you put it in the crock pot)

As for the sauce itself, it wasn’t bad, but I’ve also had better orange chicken.

As for the rice…yeah that was just one of those Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice pouches…

So, yeah, this wasn’t bad, but I think I preferred the sweet and sour chicken.

Recipe:

http://team-t-adventures.blogspot.com/2010/03/crock-pot-orange-chicken.html

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

When I order Chinese, sweet and sour pork/chicken is my go to. It is just so damn good. So, when I saw the opportunity to have that at home, I had to take it.

The recipe isn’t too hard, but it requires the weirdest combination of ingredients ever:

Most of it is for the sauce. When you’re making it, just don’t think about it. After I mixed it all together I tried the pre-baked version and it wasn’t half bad, it was amazing once I took it out of the oven. So, trust me on that. Just make it and eat it and don’t think about what it’s made of.

Also, be prepared to make a mess. I know I’m not the neatest cook ever but holy crap:

This was the chicken breading part. Which also, the recipe says you need three eggs. As you can see from the picture, I ran out with still a good amount of chicken left, so I did two more.

Now. I may have just been overcoating the chicken because when I put them in the skillet to cook, the edges actually turned into scrambled eggs. I had to break everything apart.

Yup. Also, a lot of the cornstarch/egg stuff fell off in either cooking or baking so I have no idea what was going on there.

But from there, it’s super easy. And super tasty. Definitely check this one out!

Recipe:

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/03/baked-sweet-and-sour-chicken-recipe.html

Four Cheese Baked Skillet Rigatoni

So, if you’ve been following my cooking adventures, you’ve probably noticed that macaroni and cheese type dishes has been a constant struggle for me. And I don’t know why doing basically a super fancy mac n cheese would make it any better

But first, let me show you a picture of all the ingredients. I’ve just seen a lot of other blogs do it and I think it’s cool…

There are indeed four types of cheeses. Sharp cheddar, gruyere, fontina, and mascarpone. I didn’t even know what the hell mascarpone was. And I tried a little bit of it, and I don’t get what the big deal was. I also couldn’t find fontina anywhere, so I had to settle for a fontina provolone blend, and I could only get five ounces of it, instead of the 8 that was needed.

Also, I did not have a skillet big enough to do all of these things in, so I had to do it the old fashioned way of noodles in one pot, sauce in the other:

And yes. I did make a giant mess making the sauce.

Anyway, maybe it was because I may have overcooked the sauce part when it was in the roux phase, or maybe I really did need those extra three ounces of fontina, but the sauce was so-so. It wasn’t bad, I’m just pretty sure I screwed something up somewhere that would have made it awesome.

And then I re-heated some for dinner last night and my roommate said it smelled bad. So. That boosted my confidence.

Anyway. The fight to make good mac-n-cheese continues. One day, it’ll happen.

Recipe:

http://www.howsweeteats.com/2012/03/four-cheese-baked-skillet-rigatoni/

Fruit Salsa with Baked Cinnamon Chips

In retrospect, I wish I would have made it in a different color bowl, so it didn’t look like a massive pile of red and pink stuff.

Anywho. This recipe is pretty simple, a lot of dicing. Also, this makes a lot. This is the biggest bowl I own and it’s almost full. If you’re not looking to feed a small army, cut everything in half, even the amount of cinnamon chips you make.

I know I wasn’t really supposed to cut the raspberries, but they were kind of big so I quartered them, and I wonder if that contributed to making it a little more runny than I would have liked.

Also, it calls for fruit preserves. (I used strawberry) and when it was done, I don’t know if maybe it was the brand I was using, but it kind of overpowered everything else that was in the salsa. It’s not bad, but it’s just also not the best fruit salsa I’ve ever had.

The chips, though, were awesome. It’s really simple, putting cinnamon sugar on tortilla wedges, but man are they good.

If you give this a shot let me know how the salsa turns out for you, I want to know if maybe I just screwed it up:

Recipe:

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/05/fruit-salsa-with-baked-cinnamon-chips.html