Recipe # 6 Chicken Teriyaki

This is another recipe from a group of cards.  I did actually complete this collection, back in the late 90's but this may be one of the first recipes I have actually made.  Are you sensing a trend? Yes, I have a lot of barely used recipe books, thus the desire to learn a new recipe a week, to make the books useful.

Chicken Teriyaki
Preparation Time: 15 minutes plus marinating (at least 30 minutes)
Cooking time: 10-12 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce (can you tell this is a healthy recipe?)
2 tablespoons honey (again, substituted corn syrup and one packet of stevia, since I know that oriental food sometimes needs that little bit of sweetness)
1 teaspoon oriental sesame oil (optional)  (I opted out since I did not want to buy something just for one recipe)
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (4 ounces each), cut into 1-inch chunks.  (I used 3, 6 oz breasts, I know, what a rebel)
Green onion for garnish (yeah right)

1. In a medium bowl, combine sesame seeds, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and pepper.  Mix well.  Set aside 2 Tablespoons of marinade.  Add the chicken to remaining marinade in bowl and stir to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; refrigerate for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Preheat the broiler.  Remove the chicken from marinade; place on a broiler pan.  Discard the marinade in bowl.  Broil 5 inches from heat, basting with reserved marinade and turning once, until no longer pink in center, about 10-12 minutes.

3. Garnish chicken with green onion.  Serve immediately.

Again it was getting pretty late at night when I was wrapping all this up so I went ahead and divided it up for lunches.  As you can see I have my trusty little Ricey in the background making some rice to go with this.  I did overcook the chicken a little because I forgot to set a timer and, like I said, it was late, so it was a little on the dry side.

The Verdict

Even though I overcooked it and it would up dry, it is still pretty tasty.  I will definitely make this recipe again in the future since it works out great to put in the freezer and take for lunches at work during the week.  I love making my own microwave meals!

Recipe #5 Meat Loaf Supreme

Again in a desperate attempt to play catch-up on recipes I found this one among a set of recipe cards I have gathered from somewhere in my life.  I don't remember where this set came from but I am pretty sure it came in the mail on a weekly or monthly basis and I was supposed to collect a whole ton of them, but fortunately good sense prevailed eventually and I cancelled the subscription because it was just way too expensive of a way to collect recipes.  But since I have them I better use them right.

So here we go.

The Recipe is called Meat Loaf Supreme and usually I can locate it on the Web to do a quick cut a paste so you can have the ingredients, but not this time.  

Preparation time: 10 minute (according to the recipe, it took me a little longer)

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 small onion (in my grocery store it seems like onions only come in one size)

1/2 green bell pepper

1/2 cup milk (we don't keep milk around because nobody drinks it, so I used some powdered soy milk)

1 egg

3/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 tablespoon dried parsley

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

Topping:

3 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon honey (I really thought we had honey, turns out we didn't so I substituted light corn syrup)

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Line a 9x5 inch loaf pan with foil.  Spray with cooking spray.  Chop onion and bell pepper together in a food processor.

2. Combine milk and egg in a large bowl; add bread crumbs, basil, parsley and pepper.  Stir until blended.  Add onion and pepper, mix well.  Add beef; mix just to combine ingredients.

3. Shape the beef mixture in prepared loaf pan.  Do not pack.  For topping, combine ketchup, honey and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl.  Mix well.  Spread evenly over the top of the meat loaf.

4.  Bake meat loaf until cooked through, about 1 hour.  Place pan on wire rack; let stand for 5 minutes.  Lift meat loaf out of pan and place on a serving platter.  Remove foil.  Serve immediately.

So it was getting close to 10:00 pm and I was not interested in eating this immediately so I divided it up into containers to take for lunch.  Let me just say, ignore the direction not to pack the meat.  It absolutely fell apart and looked more like meat mush that meat loaf.  I don't know if that is usual or not for meat loaf since this is only about the second I think I have ever made in my whole life.

The topping did turn out very good with the weird substitution I made.  I think it might have actually have been for the best since I do not like my meat to taste sweet.

The Verdict:

I will try meat loaf again, maybe not this exact recipe but I had fun making it.  It was very quick and easy.  Even though it looks a little unappealing it was very tasty.

Please leave me a comment if you know how to keep your meatloaf from falling apart.

Print from Mary

I finally found a groupon to Deck the Walls and got the print Aunt Mary got for me in Denver framed.  I loved this etching because it really reminded me of my husband.  She traded for it for me because she is just awesome that way.  I think it turned out perfect and now I just have to figure out the best place to hang it.  I even sprung for the gallery glass that has some uv protection so hopefully it will look great for a very long time.

Recipe #4 North African Style Burgers

I am falling so far behind in this endeavor I went for a quick and easy recipe to make for my husband as I was heading out to a restaurant for girls night out.  I did not make the full burgers with the bun and stuff the way the recipe says, because this is a Weight Watchers recipe it does get very specific about how to prepare it so you can have your points value all figured out for you.  Since I am not concerned about that any more I really just wanted to try a recipe that sounded different and I was pretty sure my husband would eat.  I was only pretty sure because of the cinnamon.  So here we go.

The ingredients

I used a pound and a half of ground beef because that is what I had in the freezer left over from the Lasagna recipe.  So I increased all the ingredients again by half.  

I then forgot to take any pictures until I had all the patties formed.  It wasn't really interesting so I don't think you missed anything.

Into the frying pan.  My little ring of burgers, aren't they cute?

All done

The Verdict

David said they were okay, because he couldn't really taste the cinnamon.  I tried one and I thought they were interesting.  I don't think I will include cinnamon in any burger recipes again but the cumin and tomato paste were very good.  I will include those ingredients again for sure.