Shredded Hawaiian Chicken with Honey Glazed Pineapple Skewers

I don’t know about you, but I’m always searching for new and easy ways to make chicken. It seems that its the most used protein source in my house. We love it fried, bbqed, baked…you name it, we love it!  As soon as I saw this recipe on Tastykitchen.com, I knew that it would soon make an appearance on our dinner table. I gotta admit, I was quite nervous when I saw that it had 1/2 cup of vinegar in it. Honestly, once the chicken was done, you would never even believe that there was vinegar in the dish. The sauce just becomes a sweet, mellow glaze of sorts.

 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup pineapple juice- I used the juice from a can of pineapple chunks

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp grated ginger root

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups water

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast

1 cup of mushrooms, sliced

 

Directions:

In a large dutch oven or saucepan, add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, ginger, and pinepple juice. Heat over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Add chicken, garlic, and water to the pan. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 45 mins or so with lid closed. Turn chicken over so that both sides get all the yummy flavor from the sauce. Add sliced mushrooms and cook an additional 45 mins. Shred chicken with two forks. At this point, I added another splash of the pinepple juice because there wasn’t enough sauce left for my liking and cooked about 5 mins more just so that the extra juice could blend in. Serve over steamed white rice.

As for the pineapple skewers, I just went super simple and put the chunks from the can that I used the juice from and put them on skewers. I threw them on my stovetop grill until both sides had some beautiful grill marks. Right before I pulled them off, I melted a tbsp of so of honey in the microwave for about 10 secs and brushed it onto my skewers as soon as they came off the grill.  Couldn’t be simpler or tastier!

 

Cranberry Apple Crisp

I volunteered to make this recipe and do a guest blog for Wendy from the the Simply Me blog. She is attempting to cook her way through all the recipes in Simply in Season, part of a trilogy of cookbooks. I made a cranberry apple crisp which I thought was one of the best fall desserts Ive had in a while. Its not overly sweet and the tart flavor of the cranberries really add a nice touch.  This would be a really good dessert to take to potlucks or to serve at your Thanksgiving table.

Check out Wendy’s blog here..http://wendypchef.wordpress.com/

Ingredients:

4 cups apples, peeled and slice- I used Macintosh apples

2 cups cranberries

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp orange zest

Toss everything together in a large bowl and pour into an 8×8 baking dish that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup oats

1/2 cup oat bran

1 tsp cinnamon

Stir all together in bowl.

4 tbsp butter, softened

1 tbsp oil- I used canola

1/3 cup nuts (optional)- I didnt use

Cut into flour mixture until crumbly and sprinkle over apple mixture. Bake at 350 for 45 mins.

Spiced Red Wine Poached Pears

I fell in love with red wine poached pears while I was in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. They were on the breakfast buffet at the hotel we were staying at. After seeing a recipe for them in Molly Jeans blog, I knew they were in my immediate future! They were some of the best things Ive ever ate in my life. They are as beautiful as they are delicious.  Heres the original recipe.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/spiced-red-wine-poached-pears-recipe/index.html