Soy Balsamic Slow Cooker Chicken
I know I have said this before, but it honestly always takes me 2 tries and a Google search to spell balsamic correctly. Okay now that I have that off my chest we can move on.
In preparation of our anniversary in a few weeks, we transported the top tier of our wedding cake from my parents freezer to our freezer this weekend. It's in a huge box, so this meant that I had to clear out a shelf of my jam packed freezer. So I thawed a lot of chicken, and decided I would figure out something to do with it in the slow cooker.
This morning I woke up, realized I thawed 3 packages of chicken and needed to throw together something in the slow cooker before heading to work. The ingredients must have come to me in my sleep, because I thought quickly and came home to a delicious dinner. The more I use my slow cooker, the more I love it. As my husband put it tonight, our slow cooker is batting 1000. For all of you that have been requesting more easy and tasty slow cooker recipes, this one is for you.
Keep reading for the recipe, I've scaled it down a bit from what I actually did this time since most people don't need the amount of chicken I cooked. We're looking forward to eating the leftovers for lunch this week though!
Ingredients
2-3 lbs bone in chicken, I used a combination of drumsticks and breasts
1 whole onion, sliced into rings
3/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
5 cloves garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons peppercorn, cracked (or just use pepper if you are in a rush)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup chicken broth
chives
rice
2-3 lbs bone in chicken, I used a combination of drumsticks and breasts
1 whole onion, sliced into rings
3/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
5 cloves garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons peppercorn, cracked (or just use pepper if you are in a rush)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup chicken broth
chives
rice
Directions
Place chicken and onion in slow cooker. Pour soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorn into into slow cooker and stir around, coating chicken. Add brown sugar, cornstarch, and chicken broth and stir again. Cook on low for 5-6 hours, break and shred chicken up a bit (a potato masher works really well for this), serve over rice and garnish with chives.
Place chicken and onion in slow cooker. Pour soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorn into into slow cooker and stir around, coating chicken. Add brown sugar, cornstarch, and chicken broth and stir again. Cook on low for 5-6 hours, break and shred chicken up a bit (a potato masher works really well for this), serve over rice and garnish with chives.
No Cook Fudge
I inherited my sweet tooth for chocolate, among many other features, from my sweet grandmother Mimi. Mimi made the best old-fashioned fudge around. She didn’t use marshmallow fluff or any other questionable substances—just sugar, cocoa, milk and butter, carefully combined according to the technique she’d learned in her high school home economics class (circa 1933).
Mimi and I made her famous fudge together a couple of times. She would start by pulling out her recipe, which was written in her young handwriting on an old, yellowed piece of paper. I’d stand on a step-stool in her sunny kitchen in Woodward, Oklahoma, and lean with my little hands, which looked like miniature versions of her hands, over her yellow laminate countertops. Her elegant, pale gold watch and wedding ring glimmered as she measured and stirred, and her brown eyes, the same color as mine, twinkled as she taught me her secrets to fudge making. I remember balling up little bits of fudge between my fingers and dropping the bitty balls of fudge into a bowl of water to test the temperature. We stirred some more and, finally, we dropped spoonfuls of heavenly scented, melted fudge goodness onto waxed paper. The process seemed like magic.
I’m sad to say that I have lost her fudge recipe, but all is not lost. I like to imagine that I’ll find it someday, tucked in between her other recipes or in one of her old cookbooks, and feel elated for days. I’ve recently inherited her wedding ring and watch, which fit my finger and wrist like they were made from me (because they kind of were). If Mimi were around today, I’d like to think that she’d love this fudge. It satisfies my sweet tooth, so I think it would satisfy hers.
Sometimes I try intriguing recipes out of sheer curiosity, and this is one of such recipes. It’s vegan and made with real, natural ingredients. It’s both vegan and raw if you use peanut butter made from raw peanuts (I didn’t). It requires a food processor and a small container (like the kind you might use for leftovers), but the method is as easy as it gets, no candy thermometer required. And it’s crazy delicious. Oh my, this fudge is good.
I’ve made it twice, once with regular cocoa powder and then again with organic cacao powder, which results in a richer fudge with a more intense dark chocolate flavor. If you can find it, I recommend using cacao powder because of its more healthful properties and because its richness does a better job of masking the flavor of the bananas.
