Monday, December 28, 2015

A Cracked Pot With A Crock Pot - Orange Chicken


Well I must be crazy. (I am a cracked pot after all - 2 Corinthians 4:7 - look it up!) I am known for my baking, but to be honest if I don't see another cookie for a long long time, I'll be ok. Really. It's hard to be in the health and wellness business and only be showing pictures of powdered sugar and chocolate chips. This holiday season was absolutely wonderful, and I believe I made a lot of people smile with my baked goods. My son says, all those people are going to need to participate in our Shake Off The Holiday Pounds Challenge now. (Including myself!). (If you're interested...let me know...we have an incredible plant based shake..and we're offering a $250 reward for the winner.)

I own my own health and wellness business. That's right...I really push fruits and veggies. Juice Plus! You can check it out my website here!

For 2016, I'm not only going to get back on track with my diet/exercise/health, I'm going to try to expand my talent to helping my husband make dinner....he's a busy guy too.

I'm a wife & homeschool mom (my first job), a business owner, a football mom, a piano mom, a youth group mom....(these are just the wife/mom things I do...we won't go into Bible studies, preschool teaching, church attendance....) SO I need to organize my meal times a bit better. I will be out 4 out of 7 nights at least. It is so easy to get caught in the trap of "grabbing a bite" because we're in a rush. When we do this we sacrifice two things....money and nutrition. I can't afford to sacrifice either of those on the altar of "stop at the store and pick up XY so we can have a quick pasta meal" or whatever. NOPE! Not gonna do it.

SO for 2016 my goal is to make at least one crock pot meal a week....and try to keep it healthy"ish" and delicious enough to please the palates of my people! I will most likely start blogging it in my kitchen blog. Krypton's Kitchen. So stay tuned.

For today I will share what I made right here. It was a show stopper! I had to adjust the original recipe for a family of 5 (4 of them men...3 of them going through puberty)

Orange Chicken
2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast
1 cup of Sweet Baby Ray's Original Barbecue Sauce
1 cup of Smucker's Orange Marmalade
2 Tbsp. of soy sauce

Brown rice
Broccoli

Instructions:
Place the chicken breasts in the crock pot and cook on high for 3 hours. (That's it, you don't have to do anything else - no seasoning, no nothing. I'm serious! Mind blowing!!!)

After 3 hours take chicken out (drain the juice) and cut into cubes (I tried, it didn't work, it shredded - we loved it that way).

Place back into crock pot.

Mix together the barbecue sauce, marmalade and soy sauce and pour over the chicken and continue to cook on high for 30 minutes. 

I took that time to make some brown rice and broccoli. 

All done! According to My Fitness Pal app, this meal was 255 calories per serving (not including the rice and broccoli.) Not bad. (Little high on the sugar per serving - so if this is a problem this might not be good, but very low in fat).

It was delicious. The orange aroma spread through my home and it called to my people. Really! (Useless fact: The scent of orange makes people want to spend money. - that's what I read once - I don't think it works). :)

Well, I'll be looking for next week's crock pot meal and I'm willing to share if you're willing to read. See you next time in the Kitchen (Krypton's Kitchen).