Crock Pot Chicken w/ Potatoes and Green Beans

I've seen pictures of this recipe (or a similar one) going around on Facebook or Pinterest (I'm not sure exactly which), and it looked easy and tasty.  I had never actually looked at the recipe until I went searching on Pinterest today.  Why not, right? 

There are quite a few variations of this recipe out there, some of them are baked in the oven and some are for the crock pot.  The yard really needed mowed this afternoon because it has been raining so much and the grass has been growing and growing - and today was the only day all week that didn't call for more rain.  The grass probably would have been knee high by the next time I could have gotten to it.   So I needed something I could throw into the crock pot in the morning and be able to have dinner tonight.

I really liked that this recipe uses a fresh homemade sauce to cook the chicken and vegetables.  But don't let that scare you away, because it's really simple - olive oil, lemon juice, and some seasonings.  Yum!  Put the chicken and vegetables into the crock pot, pour the sauce over the top, and come back at dinner time for a delicious meal.

Crock Pot Chicken w/ Potatoes and Green Beans
adapted from The Magical Slow Cooker

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup olive oil
• ⅓ cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 4 cups diced red potatoes
• 8 oz. green beans (fresh or frozen)

Directions:

1. In 1 cup glass measuring cup (or small bowl), mix olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, salt, pepper, and garlic with whisk.
2. Put sliced onion on bottom of 5 to 6 quart crock pot.  Put chicken in the middle with potatoes and green beans on either side.  Pour seasoning mixture evenly over the top.
3. Cover and cook on Low for 7 to 8 hours (or High for 4 hours).  
4. Shortly before serving, slice chicken breasts and allow to sit in the broth for a few minutes.  Enjoy.

I didn't really change a lot from the original recipe.  I threw some sliced onion in the bottom of the crock pot, and I used frozen green beans because I didn't have any fresh ones.  The chicken breasts were also still pretty much frozen when I put them into the crock pot.

I used a bit more lemon juice than the recipe called for.  The juice from one lemon wasn't quite enough, so I squeezed another one and that was too much.  I really should have checked after squeezing the first half of that second lemon.  But I didn't think about that until after I'd squeezed the second half.  It turned out really good, extra lemon juice or not.  Just be sure to use fresh lemon juice and not the stuff that comes from a bottle.

Fun fact: if you measure the olive oil into the measuring cup and then squeeze the lemon juice on top, the lemon juice will go to the bottom, allowing you to measure it, too.  Did that make sense?  I really should have taken a picture, but I didn't think about it.  Maybe next time.

I really love how simple and flavorful this is.  It's definitely my kind of recipe.

Mimi's Ginger Beer

I saw this in the weekend Parade magazine awhile back, and I thought it sounded quite interesting - so I had to try it. It took me a while to remember to buy some more fresh ginger, but I finally got a chance to make some this week. I wasn't really sure what to expect, because I've never had ginger beer, but I figured it couldn't be bad with all these ingredients.

Mimi's Ginger Beer
from Parade magazine

Ingredients:

• ¼ lb fresh ginger, peeled and cut into small pieces
• 1 quart boiling water
• ½ cup honey
• 5 -8 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• ½ cup freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
• Grated zest of a lime or lemon
• Ice, citrus fruit juice and/or dark rum, for serving, optional

Directions:

1. Put ginger in a food processor, adding just enough cold water to puree it. Scrape pureed ginger into a large, heatproof glass or ceramic bowl or pitcher and add boiling water, honey, cloves, cinnamon stick, zest and juice. Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and keep mixture in a warm place for about 4 hours, stir occasionally as mixture cools and skim foam off the surface occasionally if necessary.
2. Stir in 1 quart cold water and taste for sweetness, adding more honey or lemon or lime juice as needed. Use a fine mesh strainer to strain ginger beer and pour it into ceramic or glass bottles. Cap tightly and store in the refrigerator. 
3. Serve as soon as it is chilled, or wait 2-3 days for it to ferment and start to fizz slightly. Dilute with ice, more cold water, citrus juice—or, for an extra jolt, dark rum. Chill, covered, for up to 1 week.

Since I've never had ginger beer, I'm not sure if this tastes like that or not, but it is a very refreshing drink - all citrusy with that kick of ginger, and I've been enjoying it.  I usually just put it over ice and add a little water to dilute it slightly.  I haven't noticed any fermenting or fizzing, even though it's been several days since I've made it.

I've  been reading through some other articles and recipes (on Epicurious and Food.com to name a couple), and several of them call for yeast to encourage the fermentation, so I might try one of these next time. Or leave it out for a few days to start it.  I am enjoying it enough that I definitely want to try this again.  I'd love to hear any tips you have if you've ever made it.

Lemon Spaghetti Salad

I've made this salad a few times now.  It's very simple and makes a great side dish.  I really like it with these stuffed chicken breasts.  The original recipe uses  a 1 pound package of spaghetti, but I have cut it in half because that makes enough for 2 or 3 meals, since there are just the two of us.  I think it would be a great potluck offering, and in that case, I'd say go ahead and double this recipe.  You'll be able to feed a crowd.

Lemon Spaghetti Salad
from RockRecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. dry spaghetti (or angel hair)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Juice and zest of one lemon
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 2 T chopped fresh basil (fresh mint or tarragon can also be used)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Break pasta in half and cook in salted water according to package directions; drain.
2. Whisk together the remaining ingredients to make the dressing, and then toss together with the cooked spaghetti.
3. Serve hot or cold.

The original recipe calls for freshly grated Parmesan, which would probably make this even better. Unfortunately, all I usually have is the kind of Parmesan that comes in the green can - but that works pretty well, too.

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken

I've made the Sun-Dried Tomato, Spinach, and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breasts several times since I first tried them. The flavor is just so good.  Unfortunately I'm out of sun-dried tomatoes, but I did want to try some different flavors in my stuffed chicken breasts.  So I went looking for a recipe to change it up a bit but still use the spinach and feta.  The addition of the lemon zest in this recipe caught my attention right away.  I also added just a touch of lemon juice, and I think the flavor turned out great.

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken
inspired by this recipe

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1/2 a medium onion, chopped
• 2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 10 ounces fresh spinach
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• a squeeze or two of lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1⁄2 tsp black pepper
• 1⁄4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Directions:

1. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium high heat; add onions and garlic, and cook until onions become translucent.  Add spinach and continue cooking until spinach is wilted. Turn off heat and stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, salt & pepper, and feta.  Set aside.
2. Place a chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound with a mallet or the bottom of a heavy pan until breast is about 1/4" thick.
3. Spread half of spinach/feta mixture on chicken breast.  Roll chicken breast up, starting with the narrowest end.  Secure with toothpicks and transfer to a baking dish.  Repeat process with second breast.
4. Drizzle the breasts with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake at 350° F for 30 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes; Remove toothpicks, slice and serve.  Spoon a little of the cooking juices over the top, if desired.

4 Servings

The recipe said to cook the chicken breasts in the skillet after rolling them up, turning them occasionally to get the chicken browned and cooked through.  I don't roll my chicken breasts up well enough to feel that I wouldn't just lose all the filling if I tried that.  There is a lot of filling!  So I just placed my chicken in a baking dish and baked it.  Super simple, which I love.

The skillet-cooked breasts might get a little browner, but you'll notice that my toothpicks came loose on at least one of the chicken breasts, so I probably would have had filling everywhere.  It probably would have tasted just as good, though.

I'll definitely be using this filling again.  (I'm kind of obsessed with spinach right now)  I'm also a dark meat chicken kinda gal, but these stuffed chicken breasts turn out really moist and flavorful.

Honey Lemon Chicken with Garlic and Rosemary

It's time again for  Secret Recipe Club (Secret Recipe Club) reveal!  My secret blog assignment this month was The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch.  I have really enjoyed Shelby's blog since I first found it through SRC, so I was very excited to have the chance to choose and share a recipe.  I am especially in love with that blog header because those cinnamon rolls look amazing!  (I actually made a variation of one of her SRC recipes once - Apple Filled Cinnamon Rolls)

As with all SRC assignments, the hardest part is narrowing it down and deciding which recipe to try.  Here are just a few of the other recipes that caught my eye:

• Thai Peanut Chicken and Noodles
• Garlicky Scrambled Eggs with Chickpeas and Cilantro
• Coconut Crunch Cookies

I eventually chose this one, which looks and smells so good even before you cook it.  (Yep, definitely worthy of a raw meat pic!)

Honey Lemon Chicken with Garlic and Rosemary
from The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch

Ingredients:

• 3 lemons
• 4 T butter
• leaves stripped from 4 rosemary stalks
• 3 T honey
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Chicken pieces (I used 1 breast and 2 leg quarters)
• 6 medium potatoes peeled and cut into chunks

Directions:

1.  Gently melt the butter in a small saucepan; add the juice squeezed from two of the lemons, garlic, honey and rosemary.  Season with salt and pepper.
2. Arrange chicken in a shallow baking dish.  Place the potatoes around the chicken and drizzle the lemony butter over the potatoes and chicken, turning them so they are evenly coated. Cut the third lemon into wedges and add to the pan with the chicken and potatoes.
3. Bake at 350° for one hour or until chicken juices run clear and potatoes are golden.  Stir twice during baking time.

Enjoy!

Seriously, this smelled so good!  From the time I melted together the honey lemon garlic rosemary butter, to the time it came out of the oven.  If only it had tasted as good as it smelled.  It was good, but the flavor of the lemons kind of took over.  We wanted to taste all the flavors we were smelling.

So, next time, I'm cutting the lemons down and maybe using 1 lemon in the sauce - or maybe just 1/2 of a lemon.  I'll definitely keep the lemon wedges in, though.  They bake down and fall apart, and taste amazing when you suck what's left of the lemon off of the rind.  The chicken was really good and moist, and the potatoes were cooked perfectly, so I'd say this recipe is a keeper.  If you really like a lot of lemon flavor, then go ahead and use the 3 lemons.  Otherwise, use a bit less lemon, and I think it will be absolutely perfect.
 

An InLinkz Link-up

Lemon Cranberry Muffins

It's time again for  Secret Recipe Club (Secret Recipe Club) reveal!  This month I got to choose from Sarah's blog The Pajama Chef.

Sarah lives in Indiana with her husband Ben (they just recently celebrated their 4th anniversary) and two kitties.  She loves reading, getting good deals, peanut butter,  and pajamas - as the name of her blog suggests.  She'd wear pajamas all day every day if she could.  Sarah has a lot of great looking recipes on her blog, making it very difficult to choose again this month.

I started browsing Sarah's recipes, and I thought maybe these Mexican Hot Chocolate Breakfast Bars or these Peanut Butter Pretzel Granola Bars or these Apple Streusel Cheesecake Bars. This Crockpot Saucy Italian Chicken looks awesome, and I am definitely going to try Sarah's recipe for Cornmeal Pizza Dough - maybe this will, at last, be the perfect pizza crust.  Sarah seems to think so.

But, when I came across this recipe, I knew I'd found the one for SRC.  Two of my favorite flavors in one muffin!  There was no way I could NOT make these muffins.

Lemon Cranberry Muffins
Adapted from The Pajama Chef

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp. lemon zest - or more
• juice from one lemon - about 3 T.
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 2 cups frozen cranberries (or fresh)
• coarse sea salt

Directions:

1. Line muffin tin with paper liners or grease with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, beat together yogurt, sugar, and eggs. Then add lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla extract. Lastly, stir in oil.
3. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Gently fold into wet ingredients and stir until just moistened. Batter will be lumpy.  Add cranberries and stir until combined.
4. Preheat the oven to 350°.  Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups and sprinkle tops lightly with coarse sea salt.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. If not using liners, allow to cool a few minutes before removing from pan cooling on a wire rack 

Enjoy! Makes 12 muffins.

Oh, Yum!! These are so good! Lots of cranberries in a lemony muffin.  These just might be my new favorite muffin.

Sarah decreased the sugar in these muffins from 1 cup to 2/3 cup because she used vanilla yogurt.  I used plain yogurt, because that's what I had, but chose to keep the sugar at 2/3 cup because I really like tart flavors.  I also added the juice from my lemon for extra lemon flavor - and because I was having a hard time getting much lemon zest (Sarah's recipe calls for 1-1/2 T zest)   I also decreased the oil from 1/2 cup to 1/3 cup and added a sprinkling of coarse sea salt to the tops of the muffins.  I think it adds the perfect touch.

Next, I'm trying these with lime instead of lemon - because lime and cranberry are awesome together, too.

Coconut Lemon Bars

When I was posting that last recipe for Cranberry Coconut Pecan Bars, I was planning to link to this recipe.  That's when I realized that I never posted it here.  I have it on my old recipe site, but since I never use that one anymore, I really need to get all the recipes copied over here.  I thought I had, but I guess I got distracted by new recipes before I brought all my old favorites over.

Anyway, these Coconut Lemon Bars are some of my favorites.  I'm going to have to make them again soon, because I don't have any pictures, but trust me - they're good.

Coconut Lemon Bars

Ingredients:
Crust:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/4cup brown sugar

Filling:

• 3 eggs, well beaten
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 2 T. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. grated lemon rind

Directions:

1. Mix flour, butter, and 1/4 cup brown sugar together and press firmly into a greased 13 x 9 inch pan.
2. Bake 10 minutes @ 350°.
3. Mix the eggs, 2 cups brown sugar, and salt thoroughly, then stir in the coconut, walnuts, lemon juice, and lemon rind.
4. Spread evenly over partially cooked bottom layer.
5. Bake about 25 minutes until lightly browned.

Cut bars when cool - Makes 24

  Looking at the recipe card, I see that the original recipe called for raisins - 1/2 cup raisins stirred in with the coconut, walnuts and lemon juice.  My mom never used the raisins, so I've never used the raisins.  That, and nobody here seems to like raisins except me.  But now I'm thinking maybe raisins next time...  Probably I will split this into two separate pans and put raisins in one of them, just to see how it turns out.

Related articles

• Cranberry Coconut Pecan Bars

Lemonade

Lemonade,
originally uploaded by jamieanne.

I found this recipe (and pic) on Flickr a while back.  It takes a bit more time than the frozen lemonade that comes in a can, but it's so much better! Unfortunately, everyone likes it, and I don't want to share!

Lemonade
 
Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• Zest of 3 lemons (no pith!)
• 2 cups boiling water
• 4 cups cool water
• 1 1/3 cup lemon juice (approximately 6 lemons)
• 5 or 6 strawberries (optional)
• ice cubes

Preparation

1. Pour the sugar and the lemon zest into an empty pitcher. Pour the 2 cups boiling water onto the sugar and lemon zest and stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour in the 4 cups cool water, then pour in the lemon juice and stir. I usually pour the lemonade through a strainer to take out the lemon zest.
2. For strawberry lemonade, put the strawberries into a blender, along with a cup or so of the lemonade and blend until juiced. I strain this as well to get rid of the strawberry seeds. Then pour the strawberry-lemonade mixture into the pitcher along with the rest of the lemonade, and there you have it!
3. Refrigerate until cold, and drink with ice cubes!