Crock Pot Sunday: Orange Chicken EDITED (with pictures.)

This week I am excited to try another Crock Pot recipe, Orange Chicken using the dark meat.   I forgot about a Philoptochos luncheon and community play after church, which makes me very happy to know dinner will be cooking while I am gone and a good meal will be waiting for me when I get home.  Well at least a cooked meal.  A few minutes to make rice and thicken the sauce and then dinner is ready!   Woohoo! 

The recipe reads:


Place 8-10 pieces of dark meat in the slow cooker.  I removed the skins. 

Add 1 c of strips of green and red peppers.  I sliced them thin because I'm not a big fan of the pepper... but it turned out great because the pieces disintegrated. 

Here's a tip I learned from watching Simply Ming, on late night PBS...

Cut around the pepper and leave the seed in a core.  It's easier to clean up the mess. 

Combine: 1/2 c chicken broth, 1/2 c orange juice, 1/2 c ketchup, 2 T soy sauce, 1T light molasses, 1 T prepared mustard (I suppose this is opposed to mustard seed or dried mustard) 1/2 t garlic salt.  I used more chopped garlic, and should have added more salt. 

Pour over the chicken, cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours. 

I didn't realize the musical was 3 hours long... here's what I found when I got home.

Remove chicken and vegetables and keep warm.

Measure 1 c of cooking sauce. I measured more... and I strained it.

  Put in saucepan and bring to a boil.

Drain 11 oz mandarin oranges and dilute 2 t cornstarch into 1 T reserved juice.  I added more of each of these since I was using more of the cooking sauce.

To make sure it diluted well, I used a small container with a lid, and shook the liquid/cornstarch until it dissolved.

Add to boiling sauce in pan.

Cook, stirring for 2-3 minutes until sauce thickens.  Stir in oranges. The orange pieces broke apart in the sauce.  It was nice, but I might use a marmalade next time for a stronger flavor. 

Arrange chicken pieces on a platter of cooked rice. The rice didn't turn out so good... cheap rice.   Pour sauce over chicken and top with sliced green onions

We might try this again with white meat and better rice.  We all decided that the recipe is a keeper and it passed my son's ketchup test... no ketchup needed.