Tery-Not-So-Aki

Ok, so I found this recipe in my Ziplist email....which I must admit, as far as email subscriptions go, this one is pretty spiffy AND pretty useful....but anyway....I found this:

Slow Cooker Teryaki Chicken

Since I love chicken, love Teryaki sauce and I love jasmine rice, I figured it would be a win-win, for me anyway. The beloved is NOT so fond of Teryaki, so there's that.  Here's what happened: 

Note the beast. This crockpot has been in my life since I first went to college. Some (cough, sputter) 20+ years ago. It has yet to fail. Believe it.

Save yourself some dishes and make the sauce in one pot...like the CROCKpot....then all you have to do is dump the chicken in and you're good to go.

I did remove the chicken to a plate and shred it there...then I threw it back into the sauce to coat it. That might have been the straw that broke the overwhelming camel's back.

I added about half a bag of frozen mixed veggies to the rice before turning on the cooker. The rice to water ration of 1:1.5.  To accommodate the intruding vegetation, I bumped it up to 1.75 cups water.

 Looks fairly similar to the recipe shot...just can't see my sesame seeds because I forgot to add them BEFORE I took this shot. OOPS.

Ok, so this would have been completely and utterly blissful with about 3 cloves less garlic. It was VERY, VERY, VERY garlicky and I'm not altogether certain if I'm just sensitive to large amounts of garlic or what, but it was GARLICKY.  I make it again, I will definitely probably only use about one clove and maybe not even a large clove. Otherwise, you couldn't ask for an easier recipe. Took all of five minutes to throw it together...I cooked it on low for a little over 5 hours....put the rice on to cook about 30 minutes before the chicken was done....and sliced up the green onions, or scallions for you fancy folk, and put it all together on the plate.

Again, it was probably a mistake to put the shredded chicken back into the sauce. That was my fault. But still, garlic abounded!

So then, in the interest of not wasting foods, I decided I might disarm some of that garlic by trying to make it into a shredded BBQ chicken sort of thing.  I added about 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce and about 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, because YES more sugar will kill the garlic.  Sure it will!!! Not. Well, sorta, but instead, it nearly put me into a sugar coma. However, served over a hawaiian bun (with even more sugar), it was a fairly decent and very sweet lunch. I won't do that again. It was good once.

This is, in my guesstimation, a very versatile recipe. You could probably get away with added some onions and mushrooms into the pot too.....don't think I would add broccoli, unless towards the end, as it would get really, really mushy after 5 hours of slow cooking.  Maybe at the 4 hour point, add raw, or even frozen bits....but not any sooner than that.  Maybe even some fresh pineapple. For even MORE sugar. :D  But how can you NOT love pineapple and teryaki together? Seriously!  

So, do try it...and if you love garlic, use the full, required amount. If not, cut back to one clove. Then, enjoy!  

Food Porn: Carrot Layer Cake

Today's food porn brought to you by the letter "C".  For Carrot Layer Cake.  

Carrot Layer Cake

More On Meals: Making Changes

If you're open to new ideas, new ways of thinking and new behaviors, imagine the possibilities, the endless possibilities. Kind of like this pie. I would never have thought of this on my own. But once you see something done, a whole new light shines and you get inspired to think!  

BuzzFeed Food: 23 Ways to Make Your Pies More Beautiful

So it goes also with making adjustments to shopping, cooking and eating habits. Things have a nasty way of changing. Families grow or shrink, waistlines do the same and so does income. And though I would prefer to have my figure shrink while my figureS grow...sometimes, it just doesn't go that way. But it can. You just have to MAKE it happen.  

• Swap a fat. Using vegetable oil? Switch to extra virgin olive oil. 
• Swap a sugar.  Processed foods have a ton of sugars all with different names. If you don't want to eliminate all sugars, at least swap out your white, refined sugar for some stevia. 
• Swap a brand name.  Pasta by ANY name is basically pasta...even the whole wheat or whole grain varieties. Don't be afraid of store brands when it comes to basics, like pasta, dairy items, baking supplies, spices, etc. Seriously, why pay $5 for a bottle of cinnamon when you can get a perfectly exceptional bottle for $2. I know, a lot of it is psychological, but once you try it, you'll understand. 

And here I am, after having fully come to terms with the fact that the kids are not coming back...and we are now just two instead of four....here, now, I have to adjust what we consume. We do not require a freezer full of meat or a 10-lb. bag of potatoes, which will cause a rather nasty gnat infestation if one little spud decides to go bad and you don't realize it! Hell, we don't even need a gallon of milk, because it will NOT get used and instead will go bad. Three bucks, flushed. Not to mention the fact that if you eliminate milk and ice cream, and you try to go back, you will discover that you have greatly decreased both your need and your tolerance for the stuff. That and, if you think about it and research it...milk is disgusting. Yet again and probably as mentioned before, cheese makes the world go round. That's the one thing I just cannot cut out at this time in my life.  Maybe someday. Now is not that day.  

It's also good to get acquainted with cooking and then freezing large batches of stuff, like soup, lasagna, etc. Hence, a hefty supply of aluminum foil (also store brand) and freezer bags or containers in individual-sized sizes will greatly aid you in creating a wealth of foods without creating a ton of waste. One thing I've had great issue with over the years. Makes me cringe to think about the food that has been wasted here and makes me just feel horrible. Live, learn, know better, do better. 

When it comes to waste, I know whereof I speak. I left my 'real world' job on June 1. I took complete stock of exactly where our money was going. The results were nauseating. And, here, some four months later, the grocery bill alone has been CUT by $400.  CUT. $400. Two people. When you work in a big box retail grocery facility, you can find some very idiotic ways to blow wads of cash. When you stop working there and come home to work...you can find some very INTELLIGENT ways to STOP blowing wads of cash and you can take complete stock of what you really need versus what is just impulse. 

I guess it's about getting completely, unabashedly REALISTIC about your living situation, your eating habits and just how much you want to spend or save. Once you realize that you CAN save a metric fuqueton of money and yet still eat, breathe and sleep in relative comfort, you can create meal plans that will reduce your food budget even more and still keep your tummy from rumbling.  More on that later.  Next time, I think we should delve into the joys and ways of saving money on foodstuffs.  I'm not one of those "Couponista" types....I hate any word with the suffix 'ista' on it. I really do.  But yeah, perhaps tomorrow we'll discuss how us normal people can take advantage of money-saving techniques. 

More On Meals

Or....meals for morons, if you read it that way....

Oh, Dear GOD, pull me away...

I just totally got pulled into and distracted by Pinterest! 

NEVER go there if you have anything else that NEEDS to be done!!  

NEVER!  

Either way, apparently I have been busy this week. I could've sworn I posted about one of my favorite soups, however, it is to be found NOWHERE.  Well, it will be found this week, as I got all the necessary components at the store last night, and it is now officially AUTUMN.  That is NOT what I will be discussing today.

Today is about planning ahead.  There are certain and very specific benefits in doing such a thing:

• Saves time
• Saves money
• Saves frustration
• Makes control freaks (not like me at ALL) happy

After several months of adjusting to a new way of life (working at home, being alone 98% of the time), one thing has definitely come to light. There's not a huge need for profuse amounts of food to be purchased and consumed here in our home.  The man of the house eats approximately the same thing five days a week, and when I'm home alone, I'm lucky if I have the compunction to eat one, let alone two meals during the course of the day. 

Don't get me wrong, I adore food.  Food loves to live ON me.....in the form of fat cells....but the fat storage is based more on lack of proper eating (both occurrences and content) and lack of movement than on eating profuse amounts of food.  Essentially, I have sucked my metabolism's will to function dry. So, in an effort to STOP sabotaging my lovelier self, the one that's currently hiding, I'm devising an eating plan that will change all this.  

All it takes is baby steps.  

• Small breakfast-maybe grapes or a banana and a yogurt (Yoplait Whips...can't really stand regular yogurt. Makes me gag. 
• Lunch-typically a sandwich or a salad 
• Dinner-probably should be something more substantial, but usually it is also a sandwich or salad, about 6-7 hours after lunch.  
• Iced tea and coffee for beveraging. Coffeemate creamer and Stevia in the Raw for sweetening. 
• Vitamins. Daily. I'm bad about this. Need to NOT be bad about it.  

Regardless of THAT diversion, back to planning we go.  I am slowly getting away from all forms of processed foods, eliminating high sugar and sodium content. It really does require thought and preparation though.  That and cooking and also spending more time shopping the produce department than the frozen food aisles. 

A typical week of shopping for two consists of: 

• assorted toiletries....which you can pare down if you don't buy buy buy in bulk and go crazy.  
• pet foods and supplies (litter, treats and foods)
• household items...again, can be pared down if you stick to what you NEED as opposed to stocking up. Though it really is cheaper, especially if you have a coupon, to buy a 12-pack of tp than a 6 pack or even a 4 pack..WHO BUYS THOSE?  
• Basic food supplies (spices, baking stuff, butter, milk, etc.) Here, a small tub of butter can last up to 2 months when you only cook on weekends and use more extra-virgin olive oil as your fat source
• Meat  (ground turkey, ground chicken, chicken in parts or in boob form and the occasional red meat)
• Frozen veggies, frozen pizza.  I run screaming from the ice cream...as I adore it way too much.  
• Bread (buns, breads) 
• Peanut butter (and Polaner All-Fruit, because other jellies are either entirely too sweet or too chemically sweetened) 
• Chips (tortilla, Popcorners and sometimes actual tater chips for his lunches)
• Produce (typically lettuce, grape tomatoes, bananas, clementines....then specific items such as onions, kale, etc...for recipes)
• Pop, water, coffee

It sounds like alot..because some of it IS alot...and some of it we could definitely do without....like the processed cookies and the chips....and I so very badly want to find a way to stop buying bottled water. I am horrified by what it does to consume so many bottles. Have to work on convincing the beloved that we would be better off with a filtration system.  

So, you see the first step in making a killer, take-no-prisoners, effective menu plan is to assess what you actually use and buy.  THEN you make adjustments. Which I will address in the next installment. For now, tell me what YOU buy. Where are your weak spots? What can you NOT live without?