Wednesday, July 14, 2010

What's On Your Plate?

Sometimes I wish I was a food blogger. Not  because I'm a fabulous cook, but just because I have so much fun experimenting in my kitchen. Which is a change from a few years ago. Growing up I did some baking but was intimidated by raw meat. 

Enter married life.

I started pulling out the cookbooks, in-between shifts at the hospital.

But now, I'm home with our son, planning menus and wreaking all sorts of havoc in the kitchen. I never knew I would love it so much!


So I'm not a food blogger, but I do blog about homemaking, so thankfully there's a good dose of food thrown in. Today I'm joining FishMama in her new meme called "What's On Your Plate?" over at Good (&Cheap) Eats.

Here's my latest kitchen experiement and what we had for dinner last night--Slow Cooker Orange Chicken (with some broccoli thrown in!). I used the recipe I found on Stephanie's site, A Year Of Slow Cooking. This lady took on a year long challenge of eating from her crockpot!

I followed her recipe exactly, with the exception of the cooking time. What is it with these super long cooking times for chicken in the crockpot? Maybe my crockpot cooks unusually fast, but I found that the chicken was more than done after only 2 hours of cooking on low (the recipe called for 6 hours on low or 3-4 on high!). Has anyone else experienced this before? I run into it time after time...

That aside, we did enjoy the meal, and I will be experimenting with more "take-out" like foods in my own kitchen in the coming days...:)

That's my plate for you! Visit What's On Your Plate to get a sneak peak at other people's tables.





If you like experimenting in general, join me tomorrow for Try New Adventures Thursday. :)

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8 comments:

  1. I had to laugh at the cooking times - I feel mine cooks almost everything MUCH faster than the suggested times too!

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  2. Ah, glad I'm not alone! So much for "slow cooking!"

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  3. Crescent zucchini pie was on our plate last night. It was a recipe I'll definitely be doing again. http://thoughtfully-thrifty.blogspot.com/

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  4. I had forgotten about the site, A Year of Slow Cooking. I have the same recipe for the stove top. I loved the taste, but not all the work. I'll have to try this!

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  5. I have often thought that the long cooking times were to help make the meat more tender.
    Nancy
    http://www.howtohomemaker.com/

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  6. Nancy, I was just thinking about this today.
    Yes, the longer cooking time does seem to make some meat more tender (beef, etc.), but for chicken (particularly chicken breast) the longer cooking time only seems to dry it out! What is your experience?

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  7. I am still intimidated by raw meat!! Particularly chicken! I can't stand to touch it, though I love to eat it once its all cooked up! Luckily my hubby is usually home and okay with dealing with that ingredient in the raw form. I also use him to cut up all my onions and mince garlic! I am so spoiled!! (Though he was very impressed the other night that I cut my own onions and garlic since he was out fixing something in the car) Good thing it only needed half the onion- I wouldn't have made it through any further!!

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  8. Not all crockpots are created equal. Mine boils stuff.

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