Crock Pot Jerk Chicken (the good one!)

I've been busy unpacking and working on projects in our new house, so my posts have been more frequent on our other blog. But, I always get requests for this crock pot jerk chicken, which is a gazillion times better than the recipe I posted on here ages ago.

This recipe, served with Island rice and curry broccoli, is one of my favorite go-to recipes. Best of all, it doesn't take a lot of time or energy to prepare.

Crock Pot Jerk Chicken
Adapted from: The Whole Gang

Ingredients: 

• 1 large onion, cut into chunks 1.5 pounds chicken 
• ½ cup water 
• ¼ cup apple cider (optional) 
• 1 T ground allspice 
• 1 T ground nutmeg 
• 1 T thyme 
• 1 T Sea Salt or kosher salt 
• 1 T black pepper 
• 1 tsp onion powder 
• 1 tsp smoked paprika 
• 1 tsp minced garlic 
• ½ – 1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional) 
• 1 TB whole allspice 
• 2-4 bay leaves 

Instructions:

1. Chop your onion and mix together your spices. 
2. Layer half of the onion on the bottom of the crockpot. 
3. Rub down the chicken with the seasonings and place in the crockpot. 
4. Place a couple of bay leaves and remaining onions and spices on top. 
5. Very carefully pour in the liquid along the side so it doesn't wash off the rub on the chicken. 
6. Put the lid on and cook on low for 6 hours or high for 4 hours. 

The curry broccoli recipe I follow is based on this recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, simply substituting broccoli for cauliflower. Although, I must admit that the curry cauliflower popcorn is quite tasty, too!

Eet smakelijk!

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I found this recipe on Pinterest a few weeks ago and made plans to make it, but then everyone got sick and I did not feel like doing any extra baking. Now that we are starting to all feel better, it's cookie day!

The recipe comes from LDS Living, which sponsored a cookie contest, and this little gem is the winner.

Lemon Crinkle Cookies 
from LDS Living
Makes 2-3 dozen

Ingredients: 

• ½ cups butter, softened 
• 1 cup granulated sugar 
• ½ teaspoons vanilla extract 
• 1 whole egg 
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest 
• 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice 
• ¼ teaspoons salt 
• ¼ teaspoons baking powder 
• ⅛ teaspoons baking soda 
• 1-½ cup all-purpose flour 
• ½ cups powdered sugar 

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut a lemon in half. Squeeze juice into a small bowl. You should get about a Tablespoon. I used a little more. Zest the peel with a grater to until you have a teaspoon.
3. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside. (Or place your new Silmat in the baking sheet!)                        
4. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. 
5. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. 
6. Stir in all dry ingredients--excluding the powdered sugar--slowly until just combined. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.                      
7. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate.   
8. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.                       
9. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}.                                                 
10. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.  

 *If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

Banana Snowman

It's been a crazy few months, between my intense three month headache, selling our house, packing up all our worldly possessions and moving into a small, furnished apartment until our new house (and kitchen!) is done.

Hopefully, in the downtime, I can catch up a bit with my cooking here. I've been using Pinterest for a lot of my meal plans lately. But with most of my cooking gear packed away, meals have been simple.

In honor of our first big snow, I made my son a snowmen snack: