Hawaiian Chicken

I got this recipe from a fellow blogger and wanted to try it immediately because it is so simple and she said it was so good.  After making it, I'll say that I definitely agree and it is also a perfect recipe for the grad student because it is extremely easy, both in terms of time and budget!  I'll include the recipe at the end of this post, in case anyone else wants to try it out.

First, you put some chicken breasts into the crock pot.  My blogger friend used four chicken breasts, but I used six, mostly because the larger packages of chicken breasts were the ones that were on sale when I went to the store.

The next step was my adaptation of the recipe she gave me.  I added onion and green pepper that I had cut into chunks.  She had mentioned that she wanted to try adding onion next time, but I decided, after googling various Hawaiian chicken recipes and finally finding a Hawaiian vegetables recipe, that I'd try it with both onion and green pepper.

Then you add BBQ sauce and canned pineapples with juice.  She said that you should use 1/3 of the bottle, but since I had added more chicken and the vegetables, I decided to dump the whole bottle in.  She also said to use half of the juice from the can of pineapples but, again, since I had added more to the recipe, I just used all.  Then I cooked it on low for 8 hours, since most of my chicken recipes in the crock pot recommend cooking on low for 6 to 8 hours, but you could also do it on high for 3 to 4 hours.

This is what it looked like when it was done cooking.

After cooking, take you shred the chicken in the crock pot, then serve it over rice.  We actually had some leftover steamed rice from getting Chinese takeout over the weekend, so we used that, but I'd normally make some brown rice to go with it.

In terms of calories, this is an amazing dish.  I originally calculated estimating six servings (because we put in six chicken breasts) which comes out to 325 calories per serving, plus about 160 calories for a 1/2 cup of brown rice, for a total of 485 calories.  But, we actually got about 8 servings out of this dish, making it 244 calories per serving, for a total of 404 calories with the rice.  I served it with a nice salad to round out the meal.  In terms of cost, this is beyond amazing.  I actually already had an onion from my organic produce delivery and some BBQ sauce that I purchased when it was on sale, so it only came out to $1.07 per serving!  Even if you have to purchase everything, it would probably only be around $1.35 per serving (as long as you make sure to buy whichever type of BBQ sauce is on sale!).  Overall, it's a really cheap recipe which is good for my stipend, and it was really easy to make, which was really good for last week when, as I mentioned in my last post, I basically had a deadline every single day Monday through Thursday.  It's nice to not have to take much time to put dinner together one day, and then to have it available to eat as leftovers for the rest of the week when you don't want to take too much time out of studying to cook.

The full recipe:

Hawaiian Chicken with Vegetables

4-6 chicken breasts

1 onion, cut into chunks

1 large green pepper, cut into chunks

1 bottle of BBQ sauce

1 large can of pineapple chunks in juice

Place the chicken breasts in the bottom of the slow cooker.  Add the onion and green pepper chunks on top.  Pour over it 1 bottle of BBQ sauce and the can of pineapple with juice.  You may choose to use only half of the juice if you want a thicker sauce.  Cover, and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours or HIGH for 3-4 hours.  After cooking, shred the chicken into pieces in the slow cooker and mix together with the other ingredients.  Serve over rice.

Apple Cranberry Bread

Last week was really hectic for me.  It was one of those end of the semester weeks where you have something that you have to do every day.  I had a conference paper due to the respondent on Monday, a draft of my dissertation prospectus due to my seminar on Tuesday, an Italian translation exam on Wednesday, and was presenting/getting feedback on my prospectus on Thursday.  Needless to say, I didn't have any time to update before that and after that I crashed for a couple days and more or less did nothing.  I'll try to make up having missed last week with an extra post this week.

Friday, December 2 was my department's Advent celebration, so I decided (like I did last year and the year before) to make a dessert in the crock pot.  Because I've been trying to be healthier recently, instead of making cookies or cake like I had before, I decided to try out the Apple Cranberry Bread from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook.  Of course, the other reason I decided to make this was that the fresh cranberries were on sale when I went grocery shopping the week before, so I looked for something to do with them.

Now, the thing about these recipes that you bake in the slow cooker is that you're not really saving time because you have to do the same exact amount of work as you would baking something in the oven.  I still find it really cool, however, that you can bake in the slow cooker and the longer cooking time could still be useful if there's other things that you have to do OR you have to go out of the house and so can't leave the oven on OR if you're cooking other things and need to keep your oven free.

Before preparing the ingredients, you're going to want to do two things.  First, grease a baking dish that fits into your slow cooker, then put a large pot of water on the stove to boil.  Both of these things will be used later.  Then you mix the dry ingredients together: flour, flax seeds, baking powder, salt, and ground cinnamon.  Separately you beat together the wet ingredients, one of which, as you can see in the image above (on the right), is orange juice.  You don't have to use fresh orange juice, of course, but because the recipe also calls for orange zest and says that the amount you need is the juice of 1 large navel orange AND because my parents got me the juicer attachment for my KitchenAid for my birthday this year, I squeezed the juice fresh.

Anyway, you beat together all the wet ingredients, which include sugar, olive oil, egg, and the orange zest/juice.  Then you add the dry ingredients and stir in the apple and cranberries.  Now, I took the bowl off the mixer and "folded" in the apple and cranberries but I'd actually recommend doing it with the mixer if you can--the dough is really hard to manipulate by hand.

After everything is mixed together, you pour the mix into the greased pan and place it in the slow cooker.  Then take the water off the stove, which should be boiling by now, and pour it into your slow cooker around the pan until the water comes 1 inch up the side of the baking pan.  The bread takes about 4 hours to cook, though test it with a toothpick in the center to be sure.  I'm also a bit paranoid about the baked goods in the crock pot because the moisture of the crock pot makes the dish seem uncooked.  I actually checked it after 4 hours, then left it on to cook a little longer while I got ready for the Advent celebration.

So this is what it looked like when it was done.

The cook thing about this bread is, as the cookbook says, it can be "a great snack, a nutritious desert and can even be eaten for breakfast."  I cut it into 12 pieces and put it on a paper plate to bring to the Advent celebration--unfortunately because I was trying to get everything done and get out the door in the end, I forgot to take a picture of the final presentation.  My husband and I took a taste before we went out the door, however, and it was AMAZING.  As my husband said, "$#%^&%* bomb."

Now, the cookbook says that this dish serves 8, but clearly it matters how you cut it.  Since I cut it into 12 pieces, the calories come out to be about 205, but if you cut it into bigger pieces, obviously it would be more calories.  The really cool thing about this recipe, however, is that making this bread cost me all of $4.99 to make (so, all of $0.42 per serving)!  The only things I purchased were the fresh cranberries and whole wheat flour.  If you bake regularly, you'll probably have most of the ingredients on hand and so will only need to purchase, maybe, the flax seeds, cranberries, and an orange.  I already had the orange, via my organic produce delivery that I get each week, and the flax seeds because my mom got me to start putting some on my cereal.  Technically the recipe calls for half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour, but I'm sure if you didn't want to spend the money to get whole wheat flower and only had all-purpose flour (or vice versa) it'd be fine.  Anyway, to sum up: this was really good, I highly recommend it, and I'd make it again with the leftover cranberries if I didn't have some plans for chutney, which can also be made in the crock pot.

Honey-Mustard Pork

Be warned: this is a long post.  It's almost two posts in one, so I'd recommend taking some time to read it when you want to procrastinate.

It's been a long time since I updated, but I'm finally back and will be trying my best to update once a week from now on.  I took my exams on the very last day of October and am very happy that I can move on to my dissertation research... you know, the stuff I came here to study in the first place!  After that, we were in California for a wedding and then I presented at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in San Francisco, so was at the conference for a few days.  It was great to see some old friends from undergrad there (shout out to Steve and Andy!).  Then came, Thanksgiving--thanks so much to our friends Bodhi and Sophia for hosting us for the holiday!  Sophia made a perfect turkey (in the oven, not in a crock pot) and the meal was amazing.  To sum up, I've been very busy since I last posted!

You may also notice that I took some time to make some changes to the format of the blog--changed around the main picture that I use and the style.  Let me know what you think of the new look in the comments!  I also want to point out a couple of the new features of the blog:

1. On the right side of the web page, under my "Why Slow Cooking in Graduate School?" section, you'll find a "Follow by Email" box in which I assume you can put your email address to get updates every time I update the blog.  I honestly have no idea if it works, so if someone wants to try it out and let me know, that would be really awesome.
2. Underneath that, you'll find some new links.  The first one is to my Big Blog of Crock store, a store I created on Amazon to bring together in one place all of the books and slow cookers that I recommend on this blog to make it easier for readers to find them.  The second is to the Gourmet PhD blog of one of my close friends who is also trying to cook and eat well while doing her PhD.  As she explains in her "Who's Who" section, we "have been making mischief since we first met, many moons ago, as wayward Catholic school teachers. In the intervening years, we both became graduate students and would-be food bloggers, so it’s no surprise we’re still close friends."  The final link (unless I add more later) is to the Nutrition Action Health Letter, put out by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  My mother gets me and my siblings a subscription to this every year and they give you information about the latest studies on food and nutrition and make recommendations about how to eat healthier.  My favorite part, however, is the three recipes that are included in each issue.  In fact, the Chicken Tagine that I posted about in October 2010 was from one issue.
3. Finally, underneath that you'll see the top five, all time, most popular posts of my blog.  If you have a favorite post that's not appearing on the list... uh... I guess you need to click on it more.

So, those are the new features of the blog.  Check them out and let me know what you think in the comments.

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So, on to my actual post.  Since I've been away from blogging for so long, but have still been cooking with my crock pot, I have a huge backlog of posts to make.  Some are from so long ago that I've almost completely forgotten about how it went, which is unfortunate.  So, for today's post, I'll bring you the recipe that I made today: "Honey-Mustard Pork".  This is from a book that we just recently got as a gift from a friend, 101 More Things to Do With a Slow Cooker.  He also gave us 101 Things to Do With a Slow Cooker, but I just haven't used that yet.  (The author, Stephanie Ashcraft, has a whole series of the 101 Things to Do books.)

I was drawn to this particular recipe for two reasons: first, boneless pork chops were on sale at my local grocery store and, second, this recipe couldn't be any easier.  There's no chopping and the absolute minimum of prep work.  (Though I will note that this is not a complete meal by itself, so you'll have to add something to what you make in the crock pot.)  You start by greasing your crock pot.  I used some cooking spray that I have on hand to do that quickly, but obviously whatever way you normally grease things for cooking is what you should do here.  Then you dip the pork chops in flour and place them in the greased crock pot before sprinkling them with black pepper.

In a separate bowl you make the sauce that these are going to cook in.  The only ingredients are condensed chicken with rice soup, water, and mustard.  You mix these together and them pour them over the crock pot.

This is what it looked like before I turned it on.

Quick sidebar: Toward the end of September we received a wedding gift from one of my husband's rock climbing friends and his wife, the slow cooker with a timer that I've wanted for a long time!  It is awesome and has truly revolutionized how I use the slow cooker.  No longer do I have to select the day that I cook on based on when I can be home to turn the crock pot to warm!  I can make a recipe that only needs to cook for 6 hours on days when I go to the gym in the morning and am at school until the late afternoon!

If you follow the link above you'll see that this model also has a probe so you can set the slow cooker by time or by the final cooking temperature that you want the food to end up at!  Obviously, the latter setting is especially good for roasts, which I haven't made recently, but of course I'll share how it goes when I do make one!

Anyway, this is what it looked like after it cooked on low for 8 hours.

When the pork chops are done cooking, you take them out, leaving the liquid behind.  Taking them out can be difficult because the meat after slow cooking is so tender that it just falls apart.  The cookbook says then to puree the liquid in a blender to make gravy, but I used the immersion blender to get it done with less mess and fewer dishes (and with the amount of dishes this entire meal made, my husband--who washed them tonight--is probably very happy that I didn't also use the blender).  You serve the pork chop with some gravy on top.

Now, since the book recommends that you serve this dish with mashed potatoes, I decided to make mashed sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli to go with it.  And, of course, a salad--my mother should be proud how I add a salad to every single meal I post about.  Overall, this dinner was good.  Nothing super special that I would rave about, but a good, solid, and really easy meal to make.  The only complaint I have is that there is nothing in the dish that makes it "honey-mustard."  As the recipe is written, there is too little mustard to make a difference and, weirdly, the recipe doesn't specify that you have to use honey mustard, so there is nothing to make it "honey."  I used Dijon mustard because that is what we already had.  My recommendation?  If you want to make pork chops this way, add more mustard, maybe 1-2 tbsp... at least.  The gravy was good and all, but I think it would be better if it had more "kick" to it from the mustard.

Now, in this recipe makes it a little difficult to calculate the calories because the amount of flour the recipe calls for is more than gets added to the actual dish and you definitely don't use all of the gravy just putting it on top of the pork chops!  The number of servings in this dish also depends on the number of pork chops used.  The recipe actually calls for 4-5 pork chops, but I used 6 because the larger packs were the ones on sale.  So, as I made the recipe, if you go by the measurements in the cookbook, you get just over 190 calories per serving.  In actuality, I'd estimate the calories per serving (for the pork chops with gravy only) at about 175 calories.  In fact, the pork chop with the mashed sweet potatoes and broccoli is probably only about 335 calories.  Really small if you're watching your weight because you spend more time in the library than you do at the gym!  (And guys, you can be like my husband and have an extra pork chop and still only be at about 510 calories.)  Budget-wise, you can't beat this.  What's awesome about this recipe is that so many of the ingredients are things that many people will have on hand as staples: flour, pepper, and mustard.  The only two items I had to purchase were the pork chops and the condensed chicken with rice soup, a total of $6.00 for $1.00 per serving.  Of course, you do have to buy the side dishes, but the broccoli was only $1.99 and sweet potatoes at my store are about $0.99 each for the big ones (I actually had them already because we got them in the organic produce delivery we get each week, but if you had to get them, that'd be how much they are).  Overall, not bad and you'll get at least 2-3 meals out of this if you're married or cooking/eating with a roommate and a whole week's worth if you're on your own!  Though if you were going to eat these pork chops for a whole week, I'd recommend switching up your side dishes to make it interesting.  What sides would you put with honey-mustard pork chops?

Comprehensive Exam Time

Unfortunately, I'm in the midst of studying for exams, so my blogging has to take a back burner to exam prep.  See you all again post-exams in November!

Tomato-Black Bean Soup

One of the other dishes that I made back in May before I moved in with my husband was the Tomato-Black Bean Soup from the Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook.  I really liked this dish because it was very chili-like, almost like a vegetarian chili, but because you add water in the end, it ends up being lighter than chilis normally are.  The thing that was greatest about this dish for the graduate student is that because most of the ingredients come from cans so it is (a) cheap and (b) really quick and easy to put together.  Now, my mother would probably insert something here about not eating so much canned food because of the high sodium and the whole risk of BPA, but on a graduate student budget, there isn't always another option.  (And don't worry, mom, I normally try to get the low sodium options if they're not too much more expensive.)

Anyway, if you don't believe me about how easy this recipe is, there are only two directions.  The first is: throw everything into the crock pot and stir, then turn it on and cook on low for 5-7 hours.  The ingredients are canned black beans (rinsed and drained), canned chopped roasted green chilies, canned Mexican stewed tomatoes with green chiles, canned diced tomatoes in juice, canned corn (drained; you can also use fresh or frozen corn, but if you're already in the canned foods aisle, you might as well cut your shopping time so you can get back to reading and get the canned corn as well), sliced green onions, pressed garlic cloves (these two ingredients are the only actual prep steps in this recipe), chili powder, and ground cumin.

So, this is what the soup looked like before cooking.  Aren't all the different colors great?

And this is what it looked like after cooking on low for 5-7 hours.

Now, you'll notice from the image above that once the "soup" is done cooking, it doesn't look all that much like soup.  And that is to be expected since the only liquid that was added to the soup was whatever came in the cans of tomatoes, so not much at all.  Which brings me to the second step, which is to add some boiling water to make it more soup-like, if you want.  I did this to make it more like as soup, as you can see from the image on the right.

The recipe recommends that you serve this soup just as you would serve chili: with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream.  So, as I said in the beginning of this post, although it is in the chapter about soups in the Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook, it is very chili-like.  The great thing about this recipe too is that it was really cheap to make!  I actually had canned black beans already because I had gotten some way back when my roommate and I made a Costco run and I had the diced tomatoes already because I purchased a few extra cans at one point when I had a coupon.  The garlic, chili powder, and cumin are also ingredients that I normally have on hand.  So... I only spent $6.81 on everything for this recipe!  That comes out to $1.14 per serving for six servings!  For this recipe, because almost everything is canned, the big ticket items are the spices, but those are also the things that most people will have on hand from previous recipes.  Of course, even if you did have to get everything for this recipe, you'd still only come out to $2.60 per serving.  As for calories, even with the beans in this soup, the calorie count comes out pretty low per serving, about 220 calories per serving.  The toppings (cheddar cheese and sour cream) will add about 100 calories to that, though I was thinking as I was looking at the picture that that dollop of sour cream looks to be a little more than one tablespoon, which was the serving size I was using to count the calories, so, obviously, your mileage may vary.

Anyway, my overall analysis is that this is a really good dish for a graduate student.  It's cheap enough that it'll help stretch your stipend and it's low-calorie enough that it won't make you feel like you have to spend extra time in the gym instead of in the library.