Wednesday, March 9, 2011

What's Cooking: Sunshine Chicken

I have been having a really hard time coming up with dinner ideas lately. A lot of recipes I've come across don't look to be promising as far as "family-friendliness" is concerned.

The girls will eat almost every type of chicken nugget I put in front of them. When I cook chicken though, it isn't as well received. I think my main problem is that I err on the side of caution when it comes to chicken and done-ness (see where I'm going?). So, I thought cooking chicken in the slow cooker could help the situation. I found this Sunshine Chicken recipe using my Crock Pot Slow Cooker Recipe Finder, a free App for my iPod Touch.

Modifications/Substitutions: I didn't make as much chicken as stated in the recipe, so I cut the sauce ingredients in half. Also, it doesn't mention what sort of orange juice to use, so I just used the frozen concentrate kind to cut the cost.

Ease: Um, yeah, it's a slow cooker recipe, plus it only called for four ingredients (five if you include the water): 5 stars.

Affordability: I only buy chicken on sale, and the other ingredients are fairly common pantry ingredients. This recipe is very affordable: 5 stars.

Taste: This didn't knock our socks off. The sauce was nice, but nothing extraordinary. We decided to give it 3 stars.

Family Friendly: Will this be the recipe that earns more than three stars? Unfortunately, no. I fear part of the problem is that our slow cooker is a lot like me, it likes err on the side of caution when it comes to done-ness. The recipe stated to set it on low for eight hours. I had it on low and things were plenty done in only five (though this may have been the case because I didn't use as much chicken).
I tried everything to get Abigail to give it a chance. I pushed the whole "sunshine sauce" thing. "Look, Abigail, sunshine sauce!" or "It's called 'sunshine sauce' because there is orange juice in it!" This only made her want a glass of orange juice. Oh well, this was not a hit - 2 stars.

What's Cooking Rating: 3.75 stars

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do your girls like fish? Mine love a salmon recipe that uses half soy sauce and half pancake syrup as a marinade. We do insist on a "no, thank-you" bite, and it was the first food that after not wanting to try it, and then trying her one bite, she loved. I think it's the pancake syrup. :)

Julie said...

I also was having trouble thinking what to prepare for my family and after my trip to Argentina I figured out what: homemade pasta. I had rented one of those buenos aires apartments and because it was furnished, there was a pasta maker thatwas amazing. I ventured to cook and my children loved it. Now I bought one for my house and make it all the time.
Cheers,
Julie