Dinner, Saved!

On Monday holidays when I have the day off, I like to put a crockpot meal on the menu.  So last week's Monday dinner was supposed to be Honey Sesame Chicken.   I got the recipe from Pinterest and had made it before and knew it to be fabulous.

Except, last time I had set the crockpot on the low setting and cooked for 4+ hours.  This time I didn't have time for that, with running around with the boys and doing errands.  So I followed the "high" instructions and gave it 2.5 hours.  I checked the chicken thighs at the two-hour mark, and to my dismay they were quite raw.  Auggghhhh!

There was a time in my life that I would've thrown this out and ordered a pizza.  But I hate to waste food, so I set about my salvage mission.  With the rice cooking on the stove, I quickly chopped the chicken thighs and added them to a frying pan with a little oil.  In another pan I poured all the sauce and set it to boil, so there would be no issues with raw chicken juice.

While all this was going on I decided to try my hand at a new veggie:  roasted butternut squash.  Ok, so butternut squash is not new in this house, but usually it's served as a puree with cinnamon and butter.  Instead  I cut it into one-inch pieces and roasted it.  I prepared two cookie sheets and roasted it two ways, one with just salt, pepper and olive oil, the other with the aforementioned and some chili paste.  Livin' large and flying by the seat of my pants!

With the sauce cooked and safe from the boiling, I added some cornstarch and whisked until it was velvety.  Time for plating!

The verdict?  Not only "saved" but downright delicious!  The chicken flavor was incredible, and the squash was awesome too.  Though the chili paste version was much better than the "naked version."

Thank you Food Network, for what you have taught me.

Snow Day Breakfast

Last week we had a surprise snow day off from school.  Though there wasn't a whole lot of snow, it was enough to make the commute messy and the schools to close, so we all stayed home together.  And Daddy made an awesome breakfast:  crepes.

 Of course, any time that Hubby gets to play with his induction burner, he's a happy camper.  Crepes made on the stove don't compare...all of these were perfectly prepared.  No messy, unuseable first one, either.

There were two kinds...first one was a crispy ham and cheese.  They just didn't compare to this one featuring strawberries, a swipe of marscapone cheese and a dollop of my mother's homemade caramel sauce!  

Winter Weekday Breakfast

I can't think of a nicer way to greet the day then dropped eggs on toast and half of a very fresh Florida orange. :)

Takeout from Home

Brian got a new cookbook for Christmas, "Epicurious Cookbook.". The other night he made something called Mahogany Chicken.  It was a very simple Asian inspired dish of chicken thighs and sauce, served with jasmine rice and steamed broccoli.

Oh, but it was so much more than that.  I have seen a lot of recipes that proclaim that they taste like making Chinese takeout at home.  This one didn't boast, but was so delicious I wanted to lick the plate.  The only thing I would change was not to use bone-in thighs, as they slow you down.  Brian had a point though, boneless thighs probably would fall apart in the sauce.

This was an easy weeknight dinner with incredible flavor.  And certainly something that we will be making again and again!