Teriyaki Chicken and Rice Bowls (Made in a Slow Cooker!!)

I LOOOOOVE teriyaki chicken. Teriyaki anything, really. And when I was in high school, I spent almost all of my money and almost every lunch eating a rice bowl from a restaurant that was across the field from my school. Sadly it closed a year after I got a job and started going there, even though I'm pretty sure I could have made them a decent profit all on my own (Ha.).

So it's been many years since I even thought about teriyaki chicken and rice, until the other night I got all nostalgic and reminiscent with my mom and remembered that, and immediately went to search for a recipe. And of course I found about a million of them, and tried the first one I found. Aaaaannnd.....was super disappointed with it.

There was hardly any flavor. It was really a dry chicken with a teeny bit of flavor and even less actual sauce, and I am a person who likes sauce but not THAT much sauce, y'know? So I messed around with things and measurements and times, and came up with what I'm sharing today. I even took (some lol) pictures of the process, though it's SUPER SIMPLE because it's a slow cooker recipe!

*****Just a heads up, I am NOT at all a professional or even good home cook. I am 24 and live at home with my momma. I'm still learning. I'd love to be a great, amazing, everyone-wants-to-eat-my-food! chef someday, but for now, I'm just a learner. And I don't have a fancy camera, sorry, just my phone, so the pictures aren't great and neither is the presentation, but come on, who has time to make things super fancy anyway unless it's for company?? As long as it tastes good, right?***

Also, we ate it right after it was done cooking for dinner on friday, and I ate the leftovers for lunch today (Sunday. Well technically Monday but I am a night owl.) and it was actually BETTER than Friday. Don't get me wrong, Friday's was soooo good. My mom actually ate it and she hates teriyaki. Her husband loved it too. I love loved it. But the leftovers, even better. Which is rare for me, liking the leftovers better.

Anyway, here's an actual ingredient list, unlike last post. You can adjust based on your tastes and amount of people you need to feed, but this makes around 6 big servings.

• 6 Boneless chicken breasts (we used frozen and it was fine!)
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic (more or less depending on taste, I used more. Also, I used it from a jar. If you wanna get fancy you can use 1 or 2 cloves.)
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons cold water
• rice to serve over (I used minute rice, but if you've got the time/know how/like actual cooked rice, go for it!!) 

OPTIONAL- Sesame seeds (I love em, even though you can't really taste them) and/or cilantro (If you haven't tried it on other things besides Mexican food, you are missing out sooooo bad.)

Here's what I did:

First I got out the good ol' slow cooker. Put the frozen chicken into the bottom, and set it to high.

*Next time, I will be doing low cook for at least 8 hours, but high and cooking for about 5 hours worked fine. I just want to try to better the sauce.

Anyway, frozen chicken now in the bottom, i got a bowl and got to mixing the WHITE sugar, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and pepper. Save the brown sugar for later.

Mix the ingredients and add to the chicken. Then you can go about your day. You'll wanna start this early on, even on high it's a good 5 hours till the chicken is tender and has a good flavor to it.

At about 3 hours into cooking, I went in to check it and see how it was coming along. It smelled really vinegar-y and wasn't very thick, which I knew would happen later with the cornstarch, but I still decided to go with 3 tablespoons of brown sugar here. (And more garlic, but I am a garlic fiend haha). It was a good choice, as it really helped give a sweeter but not too sweet teriyaki flavor.

 Looks gross now, but just wait. It gets better.

Stir in the brown sugar, poke at the chicken a bit to loosen it up and get some flavor all through out. Once the chicken is cooked through and practically falling apart on its own, you'll want to take it out and set it in a bowl to shred. I went with a plate (This was my first time cooking chicken, I have a hard time with raw meat haha) and that was a bad idea. Bowl it up. Also, LEAVE THE SAUCE IN THE SLOW COOKER. It's got some thickening to do.

 Massive plate of chicken.

Now you wanna take your cornstarch and water, and whisk them together in a bowl. Once they're mixed well, dump it into your slow cooker and stir it into the sauce. Probably put your chicken in the fridge to prevent food poisoning, as you're gonna let your sauce cook about 30-45 minutes on high. (Like I said, you wanna start this early in the day haha).

Once your sauce has cooked a bit and thickened up, you can pull your chicken back out and add it back in. to the sauce to warm up.I put the lid back on and started on the rice, even though it was "minute rice" it still took about 10 minutes for me to get everything out and cooked.

 I couldn't find a lid and just used a pan with pots in it to steam this stuff hahaha. 

Once your rice is done, so are you. You can now serve it up and eat!!! OR you can sprinkle on some sesame seeds (which we didn't have :/) and/or cilantro! Here's my finished product. And yes, it was super amazing and good.

 If you wanted, you could make this the day before you eat it, the sauce would be even more amazing that way. And if you like saucier food, you might wanna do one and a half on the ingredients, or even double (aside from the chicken). This way was saucy but could still be dry to some people.

Anyway, I know reading it out like this makes it seem like a ton of work, but really when you get to doing it, you only are in the kitchen for like, half an hour to 45 minutes at the most. The most time consuming parts were shredding the chicken and making the rice.

I hope you enjoy it if you try it! If you have any tips or comments about it, feel free to share!

Thanksgiving Casserole!

My favorite time of year is fast approaching. From November first till New Years day, I am in a better mood. I love everyone. I want to cook and bake every holiday recipe ever invented and watch every Christmas movie ever made. I am a Christmas fanatic.

I also really love Thanksgiving. It's my second favorite holiday. What's better than sitting in a room with family and friends and eating a ton of food? I love all the memories that come with it. I love the feel of Christmas coming. I love the parades and the coziness of it all. And I love the leftovers.

Thanksgiving leftovers are great. I could eat them just fine, as is, cold out of the fridge. But i know people who have no idea what to do with the extras and don't want Thanksgiving part II.

Which is why we started making Thanksgiving casserole. Casseroles are great! They're easy! you throw stuff together, you bake it in an oven, you eat it! easy! They're also a great comfort food for the cooler weather. Those nights that it's chilly and you just want to sit in a blanket and not actually cook a meal but still want something that fills you up and tastes homemade, a casserole is the answer.

The thing about Thanksgiving Casserole is that for us, there isn't really a specific way to make it. There's no measuring. There's no exact directions to follow. It's great and easy. We also make a variation of this when we don't have the thanksgiving leftovers that's just as easy that I'll probably share in another post.
I'm sure others have made this before, but here's how we do it at my house.

Thanksgiving Casserole

This is literally a "throw what you want in" type dish, but there are some things that are important to it being "Thanksgiving" casserole.

• turkey
• mashed potatoes
• gravy
• stuffing! (i love stuffing the most, so i add lots)
• veggies!! (if you're like me and picky about veggies, you don't even have to add them haha) 
• (optional topping) cheddar cheese
• (also optional) cranberry sauce or jelly (that's what I use)

And any other leftovers that you think would go good in this. I haven't ever tried the sweeter foods, like candied yams, but who knows, it might taste great. Thanksgiving food is just one of those dinners that you can mush everything together on your plate and it still tastes amazing.

Heat your oven to 350 F. Depending on how many people you want to feed, grab out a pan. We use a 9x13 glass pan, but metal works fine too. A lot of this is just guessing as well, so if you've got an 8x8, you'll probably want to cook it for less time.

I like to start with potatoes. The lumpier and less liquid-y, the better. My mom loves her potatoes smooth and almost soup-like, but it doesn't hold well in this recipe. Layer your potatoes, thick as you'd like, but remember, it is the base of it so you'll want a decent layer. You could also start with stuffing, but I like the stuffing better on the top with the cheese.

Next add a thin layer of gravy. Maybe just drizzle it on and spread it out a bit.  You could go heavy, but it will make it more of a soup-y casserole. If that's what you like though, go for it!

Then, add turkey and any veggies you like. you can just rip (or cut if you aren't the hands-on type) the turkey up into smaller, manageable pieces. (I had no idea until recently that people actually sliced turkey fancy rather than cutting chunks off and setting it on a plate, like my family does haha. We don't do fancy well.)

Carrots would be great, maybe some chopped celery. Corn if you like it, which I don't haha. Those green beans that were just going to sit in your fridge? Throw 'em in! you could even get weird here and do a casserole in a casserole, adding a layer of green bean casserole if you've got that.

 Also, put your cranberry sauce/jelly here. I just chop off chunks from the can and throw it in, no reason to spread it out. You can add a little more gravy too, if you'd like.

Then comes my favorite, the stuffing. I love Stove Top. LOVE it. It's been my favorite part of the dinner since i was a kid. So i add a ton. You can add what you'd like though, onto the top of your casserole.

Add some more gravy, so the stuffing doesn't dry completely out, and then you can top with cheddar cheese if you'd like. I love the flavor the cheddar gives to it, and it melts nicely into the stuffing.

Grab a piece of foil and cover the top. Heat for 30-35 minutes, till it's hot. You'll probably see gravy boiling on the sides and the cheese melted. I take the foil off for the last 5 minutes so the cheese gets all the way melted before I take it out. Smaller pans I'd say probably 20-25 minutes. Let it sit a few minutes and there you go!! A delicious casserole that uses up your leftovers from Thanksgiving, and feels like a whole new meal.

You literally can add anything you'd like to it. You can also put stuffing on bottom, and potatoes on top if you'd like more uniform "pieces" of casserole, though normally we just dump a spoonful into a bowl and call it good.

If anyone tries this, let me know how it goes for you! Also, if you have anything to add, any tips, different ingredients that you tried, share it!

I hope everyone has an amazing holiday season! Thanks for reading!!