Huli Huli Chicken

Have I told you how much I LOVE America's Test Kitchen's Slow Cooker Revolution???? It's fantastic!  So much fun having so many great slow cooker recipes(again, thank you Linda!).

The sauce needs to be prepared ahead of time and takes 10 minutes. Here's a picture of the ingredients.

I opened that huge tin of pineapples and took out 2/3 cup of pineapple juice.
It also calls for 1/2 cup brown sugar.

I opened that huge can of ketchup(all our bottles needed refilling any ways) and took out 1/2 cup ketchup for this recipe.

It calls for the juice of 2 limes, but I only had one large one.

It calls for 6 cloves of minced garlic(I have a big Costco jar of crushed garlic in the fridge).

My mom told me to keep a hunk of ginger in the freezer as it's easy to grate. Thanks mom! 2 Tbsp are needed for this recipe.

1/4 cup soya sauce

Simmer for 10 minutes.

The recipe says add 1/2 cup of the sauce to the crock pot and reserve the rest. I think next time I would use at least  a cup of the sauce.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper and coat with sauce. I used 4 chicken breasts that had bone in and skin on.

Cook on low for 4-6 hours. If your crock pots are anything like mine I would  stick to 4 hours or less.

This is the reserved sauce.

After 6 hours.

The recipe says to put it in the oven at 450 for 20-30 minutes.
As my oven is kaput I opted to use the barbeque.

Brush the chicken with reserved sauce every few minutes and bake until it has a nice glaze.

We used the left over sauce for dipping. The sauce was soooo yummy!

I've Got Lots of Peanut Butter!

I needed to make some squares for a due and I was thinking I really need to use up the peanut butter I got on sale at Costco. So, I went hunting for a yummy square recipe that would use LOTS of peanut butter. This is a recipe my mom used to make at Christmas. She would bake up a storm and freeze it for when we had company. Us kids would raid the freezer whenever possible and so I know these freeze well and taste good frozen!!

 Peanut Butter Bars

1cup crunchy peanut butter(nice!)
2/3 cup butter/marg, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Icing
(be sure to read the directions before making this)

3/4 cup icing sugar
2 tsp water

1/4 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp marg

Combine peanut butter, butter and vanilla in a large bowl; beat until well blended, beat in sugar until light and fluffy; beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in flour and salt just until well blended; spread butter in a greased 13X9X2 pan. Bake in moderate oven(this means 350..I always laugh when I read old recipes that assume I know what a moderate oven is! :)  Bake for 20 minutes and then check!! The original recipe wanted 35 minutes and I found this was WAY to long. The center will spring back, the cake will be browned, or a toothpick will come out clean.

Icing....I screwed up on this part as I am not a great direction reader!!! The icing sugar needs to be combined with the water in a small bowl and stirred until smooth: drizzle from a spoon over still warm squares.
Melt the marg and chocolate chips in microwave. Stir until smooth and drizzle over with a spoon. Try to make a nice design...mine was kinda blotchy.
Go ahead and cut up and freeze if you can. What I did was I made a double batch, one to take to the due, one for the family to dive into! Good thing as I screwed up the icing on the first one! It looked bad, but tasted great! Enjoy!
Next time I search everywhere for this recipe, I can find it....along with the "Sue don't do this instructions! "A major advantage to blogging favorite recipes, don't you think???!

Making Brown Sugar and BBQ Sauce

Did you know you can make your own brown sugar and BBQ sauce? I learned how years ago, when the price of brown sugar was high. My cousin was living in Germany and she couldn't buy brown sugar, as they didn't sell it! It is so simple and if your sugar and molasses are bought inexpensively it can cost less than buying it premade! All you need is

1 cup white sugar and 2 Tbsp molasses

Mix well!

I buy my molasses at the Real Canadian Wholesale Club 5Kg for $12.69. I keep it in the cold room and it stays good until it's gone. What do I use all that molasses for? Ginger snaps, brown sugar, bbq sauce, cooking...

BBQ Sauce

2 1/2cups ketchup(I buy Heinz ketchup in the 2.84L and pour it into my old ketchup bottles, this is cheaper than buying it bottled)

1/2 cup corn syrup

1/2 cup brown sugar(the stuff I have premade myself)

2 tsp mustard

2 Tbsp molasses

1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce

Put all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a gentle boil. Turn down and let simmer until thick. Pour into container(old BBQ container works well).Makes 2 3/4 cups.

Please excuse the crazy picture angles...I don't know what happened!