Homemade Teriyaki sauce and a crock pot supper!

Teriyaki is amazing. Hands down. I didn’t realize how easy it was to make your own sauce, though, until I reached up in the cabinet to grab mine and realized I had used it all the last time I’d made rice. Damn! So, naturally, I get online to figure out how to avoid going to the store & making my own sauce! Apparently – it’s a breeze and you can play with it. Like, I love a lot of garlic. So I’m obviously going to add more, and ginger, too. Perfect.

So here is a recipe for the sauce:

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 5 tbs packed brown sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons cornstarch or flour
• 1/4 cup cold water

1. Mix all but cornstarch and 1/4 cup of water into a sauce pan and begin heating.
2. Mix cornstarch and cold water into a separate cup and dissolve. Add to the mix in the sauce pan.
3. Heat until sauce thickens, until your preferable thickness.
4. If you over thicken it – simply add a bit more water!

Crock Pot Pork (or chicken!) Teriyaki:

• 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts OR 3 bone-in or boneless pork chops of decent size (clearly, I did pork. I’ve done it with both and both are faaaaaantastic 😀
• 1 green onion, thinly sliced for garnish
• Sesame seeds, for garnish

  In a bowl, whisk together the teriyaki sauce, chicken broth, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil.

  Place meat into your crock pot. Add the teriyaki mixture and gently toss to combine. Cover and cook on low for 3 1/2 hours.

  Remove meat from crock pot and either shred the chicken or chop up your pork. Return to the crock pot, with any juices that have collected. Cover and keep warm for an addition half hour.

  Serve immediately on top of white rice, garnished with green onions and sesame seeds, if you’d like!
  

Sweet and Sour Chicken with Vegetable Fried Rice

I definitely grew up loving Chinese take out. It was a go to for a lot of different reasons, though usually it comes down to the fact that it’s just… GOOD. It’s a comfort food, entirely. So many carbohydrates, so many great sauces and stir fries and soups. Don’t even get me started on spring rolls. Uh, yum.

So, what is the bad part then? It’s usually just downright horrible for you, at times greasy, and really the price of going out for it just adds up too high. There have been a few places over the years that I always make an exception for, for a certain reason. For a little hole in the wall place outside of Chicago, it was the fried rice and their egg rolls. Oh lord, were they good. Here outside of Seattle… there’s a place literally short walking distance from our neighborhood. They have this great soup, sizzling rice soup, that’s really just to die for. That is my opinion, of course. Though, I’ve heard it’s pretty popular with most of the locals.

One of my favorite dishes when I wasn’t a vegetarian was the Sweet and Sour Chicken. I loved the heavily breaded white meat, a sticky sauce. Pineapples in it are even better. I think it’s also known as “orange chicken” to a lot of people. I could be wrong on that. But there aren’t Oranges in it, so I’m only assuming that’s in reference to the sauce?  Ha-ha 🙂

I decided to look up a few recipes for a Sweet and Sour sauce, and kind of made a baby out of them. It turned out alright the first time, though my sauce never quite thickened up. I don’t think I had enough chicken to sauce to absorb a lot of it, first of all, and I’m not entirely sure my measurements were all correct. It is just one of the woes of always quartering or halving my recipes to fit a family of two; and not six. I’m also awful at math. AWESOME. Anyway, I got it right this second time, though! And I was excited to share it. My rice wasn’t half bad, either. Though, I’m definitely in need of some better Soy Sauce. The stuff I’ve been using is just… blah. Minor details, so on with it!

I used one full pound of Chicken Breast (so use that in comparison to the measurements on the sauce and coating. My recipe is for one pound of chicken) diced to about an inch all the way around. You can do whole breasts, I learned the first time, but it definitely looks (and works out) better with cut up chicken.

(At this time heat your oven to 325)

Preparing the Chicken before the sauce:

• One cup of flour
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 eggs beaten
• 2 tablespoons or so of Oil, for browning the outside

Heat a large skillet on medium-high heat with the oil. Let get nice and hot, but not smoking. You don’t want the oil burning on you.

Salt and Pepper your chicken to taste. Once that is done, dip it in the egg, and then into the flour. Shake off any excess. Add the chicken to the skillet once thoroughly heated. Cook on all sides until golden brown on the outside. It should only take a few minutes. There’s no need to cook the chicken all the way through, as it will cook in the oven later with the sauce.

Once they’ve reached a nice, golden brown…go ahead and toss them in a baking dish big enough to accommodate them all. You should be able to fit one layer. Now, they are ready for the sauce.

The Sauce:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tbs ketchup
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tsp garlic salt

****If you do not have Ketchup, you can substitute with Tomato Paste. Here’s how:

Substitute 1/2 cup tomato sauce and 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon vinegar for 1/2 cup ketchup.*****

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl until sugar has dissolved and all ingredients are mixed well. Pour over the chicken.

Baking:

Once chicken and sauce have been prepared in a baking dish, cook in the oven for about one hour. You will need to turn your chicken every 15 minutes or so, to allow the breading to soak up the Sauce.

Once cooked all the way through, remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes. The sauce will thicken more, and it allows the chicken to cool slightly.

Serve immediately with fried rice (recipe follows).

Fried Rice:

One cup uncooked white or brown rice. Cook as directed on package, set aside.

• 3 tbs sesame oil
• 1 cup frozen peas and carrots (thawed)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• Handful of diced green onion for topping.

In a large skillet or wok heat up oil and sauté the vegetables together until tender. Once tender, slide vegetables to one side of the skillet and pour the beaten eggs onto the other side. Cook eggs until nicely scrambled, and then put the mixture together. At this time, add in your cooked rice and soy sauce. Heat until rice is hot again. You can play with the soy sauce here, depending on how much flavor you want. Don’t forget the amount of Sodium involved, though!! My suggestions are measure it out to your needs, or get lower sodium sauce. Toss in the green onion at the last minute of cooking, and serve immediately with Sweet and Sour Chicken.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, and that it turns out as well for you as it did for us! Please leave me your feedback, additions, questions & comments! I’d really appreciate it ❤

~StellaBlue

Pesto Chicken Pizza

Pesto Chicken Pizza

 

DOUGH:

This dough is INCREDIBLY easy to whip up, and only takes about 15 minutes total until you can load it with toppings and pop it in the oven. The secret is to use warm water, sugar, and yeast mixed together (for about five minutes, until frothy) and THEN add it to your flour mixture. This way you only need to let the dough sit for about 10 minutes before you can roll it out and Pizza the hell out of it 😀

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

Combine sugar, water, and yeast into a bowl and let sit for about 5 minutes, until nice and frothy. Then add into the rest of the mixture. Let stand 10 minutes. Then Viola! Kneed it and roll it out!

PESTO SAUCE:

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
• 3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced, to taste. I prefer a strong garlic taste.
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

All ingredients go into a food processor or blender, puree until smooth.

 

CHICKEN SEASONING AND COOKING:

Salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder, dried minced onion, paprika. About a tablespoon of each, or to taste.

Rub over chicken and then heat skillet over medium to blacken both sides. Once nicely browned, pop into a 350-75 degree oven and cook through.

I brown the chicken first to create a nice salty crust on the outside, and then pop it in the oven to do the rest of the cooking. It’s a great way to keep your chicken moist, too, and not letting it get too dry.

Take out and let the juices redistribute (about five minutes), and then slice/carve/chop/shred to your liking. I personally chop it up into nice bite size chunks to spread over the Pizza later.

PIZZA TOPPING INGREDIENTS:

• Mozzarella cheese (a few cups. It really all depends on how you like your pizza. More sauce and veggies, less cheese. More cheese, less veggies….. MORE. CHEESE. YUM.)

I also like to use what I call an “Italian Cheese Mix” which basically consists of Mozzarella and Parmesan. Or really an “Italian” style cheese you can think of. The more difference you have here, the more flavors are brought out in your finished product. I personally LOVE the saltiness of the Parmesan/Romano/Pecorino.

• Green/Red/Yellow/Orange Bell Pepper. Or a mixture of all of them. For one whole pizza, I’d say one full pepper is MORE than enough.
• Sweet yellow onion, diced. To taste, of course. I use about a cup or so. Depending on the type of pizza.
• Mushrooms – I used about two handfuls of roughly chopped mushrooms. Just spread out among the rest of the ingredients.
• Pepperoni – Just a tiny little stack of sliced Pepperoni, just to add a little bit of kick to it

To build your pizza:

I start by putting a hefty amount of sauce on the bottom. In my house, we love us some sauce, so we don’t use it sparingly. You can put however much you’d like on it. Just remember that if you have TOO much, your crust may not be able to support it. So remember to think of the thickness you’ve rolled your dough out to in comparison to how much sauce you should use. After the sauce I sprinkle just a smidge of cheese, and then start with the toppings. I add a bit of the chicken, pepperoni, and vegetables. Then add a hint more cheese (salt and pepper, and oregano, red pepper, etc. depending on what sort of taste you’re going for) before you add the rest of the toppings, and then another layer of cheese.

You DO NOT have to build your pizza in layers, and really, you can build it however you like. Some people like the vegetables on top (like the onion, where it gets a little charred from the oven) or all completely hidden by ONE thick layer of cheese. Personally, I like to do it in layers. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, really, I just think it looks prettier when building. And it keeps the cheeses from sliding clean off the top when you are biting into it.

NOW TO COOK THE PIZZA. I usually cook it at about 450 degrees, for about 20 minutes. I like my crust to be a bit darker brown. If you like a softer crust, just keep an eye on it until it’s starting to get nice and golden. Just make sure you’re cooking it ATLEAST for 15 minutes to keep the crust consistent all the way through.  Undercooking it will lead to a soggy, doughy crust. And that’s not typically pleasant.

Once it’s cooked to your degree of liking, take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 4-5 minutes or so. This allows the cheese to harden up a little bit and makes it easier to cut.

Then, just slice and enjoy. Leftovers can be refrigerated for a few days!!

 

AND NOM. 😀