Category: Food

Slow Cooker Recipe for Asian Lime Chicken Wings

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Slow Cooker Recipe for Asian Lime Chicken Wings

Now that fall is here, I know my crock pot will be getting a workout. There is just something about having food cooking slow and tender all day and having that warm and comforting meal ready when you are.

My lazy heart loves slow cooker meals. Not only is everything in one pot (or two), but if your family is busy, they can serve themselves as they get home. For example, my husband made chili Wednesday. He is on vacation this week, so he’s been busy with some home improvement projects he hasn’t had time to do. My daughter has school, work, and a million activities going on. I work from home, so my schedule is more flexible.

Everyone was able to come in and eat the food as they were ready for it. My daughter ate early as she had to leave for an event on campus and to check her work schedule. My husband ate when she did. I ate later in the day. We have enough for leftovers, too, btw, which is another bonus.

This recipe is one of those that should please everyone in your family. You can nuke some precooked rice to go with it or serve with a side of salad for a full meal. It is also tasty with some sliced cabbage lightly fried in olive oil or sesame oil with onion, salt and pepper in a skillet. You only want to very quickly and lightly fry the cabbage. It should still be crunchy. However, you could also serve these wings as an appetizer at a party or take them along to an event.

This is an inexpensive dish that tastes expensive and has a slightly eastern flair that will satisfy your Chinese food cravings.

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Slow Cooker Recipe for Asian Lime Chicken Wings
Author: Crabby Housewife
Ingredients
  • 1/4 Cup Soy Sauce
  • 1/8 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
  • 2 Tablespoons Honey
  • 3 Minced Garlic Cloves
  • 2 Teaspoons Sriracha
  • 1 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
  • 1 Lime
  • 2-3 Pounds Chicken Wings
  • * Optional - 4 Teaspoons Corn Starch or Other Thickening Agent
Instructions
  1. Place the chicken wings into the slow cooker. I like to use the Reynolds Liners for this for easy cleanup later on.
  2. Cut the lime in half and squeeze both halves over the chicken until no more juice comes out.
  3. In a blender, combine soy sauce, vinegar, honey, minced garlic, ginger, and Sriracha (if you're adding corn starch, do so now along with two tablespoons of water). Blend until mixed and then pour over the wings.
  4. Cook on low for 7 hours.

Personally, I don’t add corn starch. I’d rather have the sauce a bit less thick than to add ingredients that simply aren’t very nutritionally valuable to my family and may even be bad for us. You may want to try this recipe first without the corn starch. If you find the sauce too runny, you can always add it next time you cook this meal.

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Make Ahead Grilled Chicken for the Week (freezer meals, too!)

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Make Ahead Grilled Chicken for the Week (freezer meals, too!)

Grilled chicken is such a versatile and healthy food to have on hand. One of the things I love about chicken is that when cooked correctly you can keep it in the freezer or fridge to have the basis for quite a number of quick meals you can throw together on the run. Here are some ideas:

  • Microwaveable brown rice, chicken, cabbage, soy sauce (heat it all up in a skillet). So good!
  • Cabbage and grilled chicken chunks. I like with soy sauce and some onions.
  • Chicken soft tacos. Use low carb or whole wheat tortillas, add toppings like shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese and sour cream.
  • Grilled chicken salad with bagged salad and chunks of grilled chicken. We love to throw in some berries for added nutrients or even have fresh spinach as the base.
  • Grilled chicken by itself with any side.
  • Grilled chicken breasts with Monterey cheddar, diced tomatoes and bacon pieces on top.

If the chicken is precooked, I can have most of these meals together in under 10 minutes. Example, pull diced chicken from fridge, nuke frozen rice, throw rice, chicken, cabbage and soy sauce in skillet and heat through. Or, nuke precooked bacon for 1 minute or so until crispy. Add Monterey cheddar to top and nuke for a minute or so to melt cheese and heat chicken while you dice tomato. Add bacon and tomato to top. Dinner is ready!

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Make Ahead Grilled Chicken Recipe
Author: Crabby Housewife
Ingredients
  • Chicken breasts with visible fat removed.
  • Garlic powder
  • Paprika
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Olive oil
  • Parchment paper
Instructions
  1. Although you can grill this chicken on a grill or stove top, I actually prefer to bake it for the most part so it stays moister and tender when freezing, reheating, etc.
  2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
  3. Grab a sheet of parchment paper and line as many baking sheets as you'll need depending on how many chicken breasts you are cooking. Keep in mind that juices will escape, so you want something with sides.
  4. Trim the fat from the breasts.
  5. Place side by side on top of parchment paper.
  6. Brush on olive oil to both sides.
  7. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, garlic powder (wait on paprika as it tends to take on a burnt quality in skillet).
  8. Now, preheat a large family size skillet on the stove top.
  9. You'll likely need to cook the breasts in batches, so start with your first batch.
  10. Grill each side of each breast for about two minutes or until the outside is browned.
  11. Transfer that first batch back to the parchment paper and start second batch of breasts to brown.
  12. While the second batch is browning, sprinkle on just a bit of paprika to add color.
  13. Cook breasts for 20 minutes in oven. Since you're cooking in batches, you may have them coming out at different times. You want an internal temperature of 165 degrees according to FoodSafety.gov.
  14. You can also cut through the center of the thickest breast and make sure there is no pink. Chicken has a flaky texture when cooked through. It should not be smooth or shiny.
  15. Allow to cool for about 30 minutes and then refrigerate, freeze or predice for salads and dishes.
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Healthier Popcorn in a Snap

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Healthier Popcorn in a Snap

One of my favorite foods is popcorn. There is something about the taste that takes me right back to family nights as a child. My mom would pop a big batch of pop corn on the stove, melt some butter of it, salt it and we’d have a treat to eat while we waited for The Muppets to come on. Can you believe this show is back on the air all these years later?

However, we’re all busy these days. Creating a batch of popcorn on the stove is time consuming and I also don’t want to mess up my Pampered Chef pot by cooking popping corn in it. Microwave popcorn is fast and simple but I worry about the chemicals in it and I don’t particularly like the taste of any of the microwave popcorn brands out there. They have that weird chemical taste that tells me it isn’t so good for me.

For years now, I’ve made my own microwave popcorn bags and as I popped up a small batch tonight, I realized I should share this trick with all of you. You may or may not have tried this yet. It is so simple, you will be amazed, and the taste is just like stove top popped popcorn.

As an added bonus, you can use healthier fats, such as the super high quality olive oil I’ve been using that my parents brought me back from their trip to Spain. You can also use real butter for a topping, which is healthier than margarine (it’s real, folks; margarine is not). It’s better for the environment as the paper bags are biodegradable.

popcorn
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Healthier Popcorn in a Snap
Author: Crabby Housewife
Ingredients
  • 1/4 Cup Popcorn Kernels
  • 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil or oil of your choice - coconut, canola
  • 1 Pinch of Salt
  • 1 Brown Paper Lunch Bag
Instructions
  1. Open the lunch bag and place kernels in the bottom.
  2. Add the oil, drizzling over all the kernels.
  3. Hold the top closed and give the bag a little shake to distribute the oil.
  4. Sprinkle on salt.
  5. Fold the top of the bag over several tips. I also like to just give it a tight squeeze.
  6. Microwave for 3-4 minutes (listen for the kernel popping to slow almost to a stop and you'll know it is ready).

A Few Proven Tips

As I said before, this is a recipe I’ve been using for many years. Over time, you start to pick up ways to get a better bag of popcorn. Here are some of my favorite tips:

  • The most expensive popcorn isn’t always the best. I have tried this recipe with Orville Redenbacher popcorn. You’d think that would pop better since it’s expensive. It doesn’t. I’ve also tried it with the white popcorn, etc. I find the best popcorn is Kroger brand (or store brand) yellow popcorn. That’s right. The cheapest bag you can find. It pops just as well, has less kernels when finished, and tastes great.
  • Butter is a wonderful topping, but you can also add some cinnamon and sugar for a sweet treat or some Parmesan cheese for a savory dish of goodness. I sometimes purchase the powdered white cheddar and add that, too, but again you are essentially sprinkling on processed crap. Still, sometimes we need the processed junk or our taste buds, right? Okay, maybe not, but I do it sometimes anyway.
  • Don’t stop the microwave when the popping slows, but when it almost stops. If you stop it too soon, it will not pop all the way and you’ll wind up with a tiny handful of popcorn. Not the end of the world, though. Just pop another bag if this happens to you.

These paper bag popcorns are the perfect size for one person. If you are serving a family, let everyone pop their own and then transfer to another paper bag for eating as the initial bag will be drenched in oil. Hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

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Pumpkin Pie Dip Sugar Free Gluten Free and Good

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Pumpkin Pie Dip Sugar Free Gluten Free and Good

As a frugal mom, avid couponer and cheapskate queen, I have a handful of sites I visit on a daily basis to see what is on sale, etc. One of those sites is Hip2Save. When I popped on there today, I saw this yummy looking recipe for Pumpkin Pie Dip.

You make this dip with just three simple ingredients and serve with vanilla wafers. This would be a tasty treat to take to a church gathering, serve at a get together or just for everyday yumminess.

However, right now I’m trying to limit my carbs and it had just too much sugar in it for me. The good thing? This recipe would be so very easy to make low carb.

  • Instead of regular Cool Whip, sub sugar free or make your own heavy whipping cream from scratch (I like the taste of Cool Whip for recipes like this, though).
  • Pumpkin is great for you. It is full of fiber and while it does have carbs, they are healthy carbs. You don’t need to change this ingredient at all.
  • Instead of regular instant pudding, sub sugar free instant vanilla pudding.
  • Instead of regular vanilla wafers, purchase sugar free ones or better yet use some sliced up apples or make your own gluten/sugar free cookies.

Colin, over at Hip2Save suggests adding a pinch of pumpkin spice to the mixture. You can see this is a very simple recipe. Thanks for another fabulous post, Hip2Save. Keep up the good work and we’d love to see more recipes. By the way, if you haven’t checked out that site, it is definitely worth a visit, or two, or three.

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Low Carb Individual Pizzas

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Low Carb Individual Pizzas

Right now we’re trying to cut carbs and eat a little healthier. My blood sugar, while in the normal range at the moment, tends to sit on the high end of that, especially if I eat a lot of junk. Cutting carbs and getting more exercise always helps with that. But, I love pizza. I could honestly eat pizza for every meal and never get tired of it or want anything else.

The solution? Come up with some low carb pizza options. My family gets tired of pizza, though, so I thought I’d experiment with an individual portion and see how that went.

I started off with a couple of recipes online, but they weren’t quite cutting it. One used cream cheese. Can I just say that the texture was yuck? The taste was good, though.

Then, I tried another but the crust was too thick. I like a thin, crunchy crust. Sure, there are some mixes you can buy that are low carb, but they have this awful taste to them that I hate.

Almond flour is too dense and coconut doesn’t have the right taste. Finally, I settled on the recipe below. It is great for smaller portions (this recipe makes one pizza about 5-6 inches in diameter. It is also extremely low in carbs and had that crunch at the edges that I wanted.

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Low Carb Individual Pizzas
Author: Crabby Housewife
Ingredients
  • 1 egg
  • 1 ounce shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 1 ounce shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 ounce of other shredded cheese of choice I used more moz, but you could use pepper jack or more cheddar, etc.
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon basil
  • Toppings of choice
  • Pizza sauce low in carbs read the labels, a lot have added sugar
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. Crack the egg and beat it thoroughly.
  3. Add garlic powder and basic.
  4. Sprinkle in cheese and mix together by folding into the egg. I use my hands to mix this without breaking down the cheese.
  5. Place mixture on parchment paper placed on a baking pan. (Learned this the hard way, so you don't have to)
  6. Now, use a fork and spread it out as thin as possible but still covering the parchment. So, if you spread it and start to notice holes, fill them in.
  7. Bake for 6-7 minutes. The crust will be slightly brown around the edges.
  8. Pull from oven and reduce heat to 375. Place sauce and toppings on pizza and a bit more mozzarella cheese. Cook for an addition 7-8 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Watch carefully because every oven cooks a bit differently. You don't want to burn the crust but it's okay if it gets a bit brown, especially around the edges.
  9. Allow to cool for a minimum of 7 minutes before you attempt to cut it and eat. So good. I can barely tell the difference from real pizza and actually kind of prefer this version.
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