Excellent New Take on Chicken

I'm rediscovering my Crock Pot.  I bought it in college to make black beans - lots and lots and lots of black beans.  Along the way, I've learned some tricks to make the best black beans ever.  Alas, my children seem to consider beans of any sort to be little pellets of terror.  Kids.  What do they know?

The other day I was working in the library and took a break to wander through the stacks.  That's a dangerous thing, you know, wandering through the stacks.  By the time I returned to my desk to keep writing (part-time job, you know), I had amassed quite a pile of books.  Among them was this little gem:  

It's the book form of the best recipes from the blog A Year of Slow Cooking.  Now, I'm not a blog hopper.  I'm a Twitter hopper, but not really a blog hopper.  I have friends who love Stephanie O'Dea's blog, but I'd never been there.  See?  I told you I wasn't a blog hopper.  I am, however, a stack wanderer and found the book in the library.  

Flipping through I found "Brown Sugar Chicken."  My first thought was "how could anyone do something so terrible to a piece of chicken as to cover it in brown sugar and cook it for hours?"  It seems Ms. O'Dea's children loved the chicken, so I decided to get over my judgmental self and try it.  After all, I had chicken breasts in the fridge threatening to meet the garbage - and waste is not an option!

Oh. My. Drooling. Goodness.  "Brown Sugar Chicken" is wonderful!  It doesn't taste overly sweet at all.  As it cooks, the intoxicating aroma of roasting garlic wafts through the house.  Something magical and almost mellow-spicy Asian happens with the brown sugar, white wine vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, pepper, and lemon-lime soda.  Darling suggested adding some peppers and ginger to it, substitute rice noodles for the rice and it would almost taste Thai.  Yum Yum.  That man is brilliant.

The bonus?  My meat-lover Middle One loved it.  He enjoyed it with and without the sauce.  Little One thought it was yummy and Big Kid... well, Big Kid doesn't eat much real people food and turned up his nose.  Sigh.  Oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day.  Or a balanced palate wasn't developed in a day or a year.

The verdict?  This recipe, probably with the aforementioned tweaks, will make it into the family recipe box.  Tasty, easy, and the chicken breasts weren't wasted.  Sorry for the lack of pictures.  By the time I thought to take a picture, the dishes were in the washer.

~ G