Hot and Spicy Braised Peanut Chicken

Number 9 of the crockpot challenge is my absolute favourite so far! I found the recipe via Pinterest on Better Home and Gardens.
Even when getting all the ingredients together for freezing it was the dish that had the best scent and it wasn’t even cooked yet! About three quart in the cooking time the aromas secretly crept from the pot to fill my nostrils and it was like a slice of heaven.
The hubby took the first bite – he does tend to run to the crockpot a lot lately – and made some sort of grunting noise. My heart skipped a beat, worried I messed up another full batch of food as with the Mac & Cheese mishap, had the delicious scent been too good to be true? After a moment he turned his back and I saw a big fat smile plastered over his face.
The chicken was extremely tender and the flavours had infused into the chunky sauce. Even though it is called hot and spicy I must admit it was neither really – but not in a bad way. If you wanted to spice it up, I am going to add a red pepper to it next time – or maybe increase the amount of red curry paste. An absolute winner, this dish, and one to be made in our home for many years to come I am sure of it!

Food and Forgetfulness

The Crockpot challenge is still going and in the past couple of days I enjoyed two dishes. Only problem was I forgot to make pictures of one of these dishes (twice!) which is a real shame because it is an absolute winner! First of all we had Teriyaki Chicken, secondly Sausage with Peppers – both dishes were done according to the recipes of Ring around the rosies, who has inspired some more of my recipes.
Above you can see the slightly moved image (sorry!) of Teriyaki Chicken. The dish was tasty enough but it lacked a certain bite. The pineapple and carrot combined really well with the teriyaki sauce and well… chicken goes with everything, don’t you think?
The Sausages and Peppers however is an amazing dish! I am definitely going to make it again some day soon and will tell you all about it then!

Mac and Cheese Mishap

Doesn’t this look wonderfully cheesy? The colour palette is radiant with the yellow, pink and green, it makes my taste-buds pull out the balloons and garlands in anticipation of a party in my mouth! My effort to recreate Today’s Creative Blog’s Mac and Cheese looks absolutely delicious, but that is about as positive I can be.

Crockpot dish nr 5: Cool Ranch Chicken

I must admit I am loving my crockpot more and more each time I use it, and the hubby is not far behind in appreciation. As I mentioned earlier the only problem sometimes is finding the right ingredients for the mostly American style of cooking. A good example is today’s dish: Cool Ranch Chicken by Family Fresh Meals (wonderful source of inspiration!). I was afraid it would have to turn into taco-seasoning chicken because Ranch dressing is hard to come by over here, not to mention the Ranch dressing mix!

Hotchpotch in the crockpot

As part of the crockpot challenge I was going to make loaded mashed potato  but when the day came I felt more like a typically Dutch winter dish – even though spring seems to have finally come around – called Hutspot (Hotchpotch in English).

Chili with Beans & Cheesy Ravioli Bake

Before the weekend I told you all about the start of my crockpot challenge. That first dish (the Balsamic Glazed Drumsticks) lasted us for 2 big meals which took us into the weekend. In today’s post the two recipes I’ve made since Sunday. All the instructions and ingredients can be found on the original sources which you can find by clicking the titles.

Freezer to Crockpot challenge here I come!

Last Monday I finally decided to go for it and put my crock pot to the challenge. Since getting it for my birthday I have used it 4 times, all to full content, but somehow it felt easier to just decide what to make for dinner last-minute – especially the hubby feels this way. So after some reasoning with him about costs, ease and luring him in with some tasty looking recipes I found on Pinterest, he agreed to give it a go. The advantage, I told him, would also be that since it was all in the freezer, there was no problem in eating something else in between. Luckily we have an online supermarket that delivers their (fresh) groceries all the way into your kitchen!