I think you know I live and die by root beer. I drink it, I cook with it, I bathe in it…no, wait. Even if you don’t love root beer (what’s wrong with you) the root beer just adds to the flavor of the chicken and doesn’t overpower it. Plus it gives a nice caramelization when the chicken is baked.

ingredients:
8-10 chicken thighs
1 cup root beer
1 cup ketchup
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon minced ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt
pepper

In a bowl combine the root beer, ketchup, lemon juice, orange juice, maple syrup, minced ginger and garlic.

Put the chicken pieces in a large freezer bag and pour in the marinade ingredients. I always put marinating meats in freezer bags in ANOTHER pan, you never know if that thing is going to leak! Let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 4-8 hours, however long you’ve got.

Drain off the marinade and lay the chicken pieces in a baking pan. Don’t reuse tainted marinade people, ew! Salt and pepper the chicken to season and then cook at 375 degrees for 30 minutes covered in foil. Take off the foil and cook for another 25 minutes.

This is a nice sticky chicken with a lot of good flavor. Really easy to make when you’re in a hurry!

This is a great quick dinner that you can throw together in the morning and come home to without a care in the world. Warm and flavorful, you’ll look forward to dinner being fully prepared!

ingredients:
8 chicken thighs
1 onion, chopped
6-8 tomatoes cubed
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
14 ounces chicken broth
1 cup water

Fresh tomatoes straight from the garden make a world of difference. I know not everyone has access to that – but wow, the flavors are amazing. Luckily a little Fairy dropped off an abundance of them on my doorstep.

Place the chicken thighs in the bottom of the crock pot. Add the diced onion, minced garlic and then the tomatoes.

Sprinkle the onion powder, salt, pepper and oregano on top.

Pour the chicken broth and the water along the side of the crock pot wall, carefully not to disturb your spices too much.

Cover and cook and low for 8 hours. Serve this over rice.

The smell of this cooking all day will fill your house with deliciousness. My kids love the fact that the chicken is so soft and moist. A great meal with virtually no prep or clean up!

Fried Chicken. The words just sound comforting don’t they?

I love it, and so I submitted a proposal to FoodBuzz 24×24 to do a FRIED CHICKEN FACE OFF, you know how I love a good taste test.

Much to my surprise they accepted my proposal and I found a bunch of friends who were more than willing to sacrifice their hearts and minds for this challenge. I say that literally because with 8 different fried chickens I think they now have clogged arteries.

The competitors:
A: Popeye’s
B: Knott’s Berry Farm
C: KFC
D: The Loft Hawaiian style fried chicken
E: Louisiana Fried Chicken
F: Albertson’s supermarket
G: Dinah’s Family Restaurant
H: Litz Restaurant

I laid each one out in it’s own basket, then gave everyone ballots to record their thoughts.

Tastiest flavor. Most Juicy. Greazy factor. Best Overall Chicken.

Everyone had a different opinion. Some liked spicy, some people liked more crunch, some people thought greazy was a good thing while others thought greazy was a BAD thing.

I invited friends all with kids around the same age – and the kids took part too. While they didn’t eat all 8 fried chickens of course, they still enjoyed ‘filling out the ballots’ and choosing their favorite. I don’t know if they realized I had only given them two different ones to try…

I put out some palate cleansers for in between bites: Chicken in a Biskit, Corn Salad, Celery and Carrots and of course…

…cupcakes! I CAN’T have a party without making cupcakes.

But chicken was the focus here. And the winner?

Albertson’s. What.

It was a true shocker because it was the one I added as kind of a joke. A supermarket fried chicken? The cheapest of them all? Crazy. But everyone loved it and it got the most points overall. The second place by only a few points was Dinah’s, which was also mighty tasty. The loser? Knott’s. ~sniff~

All in all it was great fun, and like every taste test there are surprises. Now I just need to figure out what to do with 10 zillion lbs of leftover fried chicken. Yikes.

**I know everyone is saying, where’s Honey Kettle, where’s Roscoe’s, Huckleberry, etc. and believe me, they were all on the list plus many more. But in alllll the years of taste tests I’ve done – 8 or 9 is pretty much the limit on anything. After that it’s all a blur. Therefore a Round 2 is probably in order…

Check any local Hawaiian church cookbook and you’ll probably find a recipe for guava chicken. Most call for frying the chicken, but who has time for that. Instead I marinate it in the sauce all day then bake it right before dinner. Such a time saver.

Actually, I’m not a huge fan of guava, shhh. But the Guava jelly in this adds a subtle sweetness that is too good to pass up.

ingredients:
6-8 chicken thighs
one 10 ounce jar guava jelly**
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

**(I prefer Hawaiian Sun, but I think Goya guava jelly is more readily availiable)

In small bowl combine the jelly, cider vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, salt and pepper.

Place the washed and dried chicken into a freezer bag. Add the sauce ingredients. Marinate for 4-6 hours.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prep a baking pan with non-stick foil. Place the chicken skin side down and bake for 25 minutes. Turn the chicken over and bake for another 20 minutes.

SIMPLE, right? Told you. I’m not big on wasting time…

This chicken is sweet and fruity and perfect with rice. The kids love it!

I first saw a recipe for Red Roasted Chicken in the Too Hot Tamales book, however I didn’t have all the ingredients so I kind of just put this together on the fly.

I made it into chicken tacos and then put together a quick avocado+corn guac to eat with it. The corn gives just the right pop and the guac is a nice cool flavor next to the tomato-y chicken.

ingredients:
5 boneless chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-1/2 Tablespoons paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
juice of one lime
1 medium onion, sliced
4 roma tomatoes, seeded and halved

flour tortillas
avocado+corn guac (recipe, here)

In a small bowl combine the garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, olive oil and lime juice. Set aside.

Place the chicken breasts in a large freezer bag and pour the marinade on top. Seal the bag and place in a dish (in case of leaks) and let it sit in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prep a 9×13 baking pan, by either greasing it or lining it with non-stick foil. Spread the onions over the bottom of the pan.

Now I much prefer fresh tomatoes, but you can use canned, like I show in this picture. Hey, I couldn’t get to the market, you know how it is. But…I really don’t like the canned. That’s just me. Fresh tomatoes taste way better. In any case, lay the tomatoes on top, then lay the marinated chicken on top of the tomatoes. Don’t pour the marinade in there, just the chicken! Toss the marinade!!

Bake for 20 minutes, turn the chicken over and sort of settle them down into the now juicy tomatoes, and bake for another 20-25 minutes.

Take the chicken and the tomatoes out of the pan – watch it, they’re hot – and then chop them up. Not a clean task, let me tell you.

Take the chicken, tomatoes and onions and put them in a warmed flour tortilla with a dollop of avocado+ corn guacamole. I also made some Spanish Rice to go with it all. A perfect mid-week dinner.

I had an orange. I had a lemon. I had a shallot. This is what I came up with.

This is a bad name for this, but I got nothin’. It’s not at all sour as the name would imply. There isn’t even any orange or lemon juice in this, you’ll be surprised how the zest itself does all the work.

ingredients:
6 chicken thighs
Zest of one lemon
Zest of one orange
2-1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon honey
1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallots, minced
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prep a baking dish by greasing it or using non-stick foil.

In a small bowl, stir together the lemon zest, orange zest, olive oil, soy sauce, honey and garlic. (I don’t like to put the shallots in with the marinating stuff cause I think it’s a little overpowering.)

Pu the chicken in a large freezer bag, along with the citrus sauce. I like to lay this in a pan, just in case the bag leaks. No one wants raw chicken juice all over your nice clean fridge. Marinate in the fridge for about 2 hours+.

Turn out the chicken into a large baking dish, and add in the shallots. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 15 minutes, turn over and bake for another 20.

I promise you this is EASY and incredibly flavorful. I serve it with crispy potatoes and the kids love it!

Just like last year, the Lemon Fairy left a gigantor bag of lemons on my porch. I’ve been working my way through them, so you know what that means, it’s Lemon Week!
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This smells amazing when it’s cooking, all the ingredients come together so nicely. The kids just loved this and ate it right up, unfortunately that’s why I don’t have any good pictures – I apologize, but trust me it was delicious!

ingredients:
6-8 chicken thighs (bone in!!)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons flour
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons parsley
3 teaspoons lemon zest
3 carrots, cut into chunks
3 celery, cut into chunks
juice of one lemon
12 ounces chicken broth
1 cup water

Place chicken in the slow cooker pot. By using bone-in thighs, the chicken stays moist as compared to using filets which can really dry out, even in a crock pot.

In a small bowl combine the salt, pepper, onion powder, flour, chopped garlic, lemon zest and parsley. Rub into the chicken.

Put the cut carrots and celery on top.

Add the lemon juice over everything, then slowly add the chicken broth and water down the side (not on top of the veggies) filling the pot. This keeps the lemon and the spices intact.

Cover and cook for 6 hours on low. I served it with rice, but by itself with a nice biscuit is pretty great too!

Mochiko chicken is DEELISH. Then again I love mochi, so I like to use mochiko in everything. Soup, cupcakes, waffles, you name it. Mochiko chicken is typical Hawaii meal – I like to add a little garlic to mine and also cut it up into tinier than bite sized pieces. It really marinates full of flavor that way. Like most fried chicken it tastes GREAT cold, so leftovers make a fantastic lunch. Yoda thinks so, anyway.

Mochiko Chicken Recipe, here.

*Part of a series of posts documenting the Kid’s lunch.

The Kid, as a new kindergarten-er, is unhappy with the school lunches I’ve been packing. He said, “Can’t you put together something else for lunch, say…fruit? Maybe some chicken salad with a little mayo?” You’ve GOT to be kidding. Suddenly it’s Top Chef: Lunch Bag edition up in here.

So I’ve been trying out recipes at dinner to see what he likes and doesn’t and what will work in a lunchbox. So I threw together a chicken salad PER HIS HIGHNESS’ REQUEST. I added apples for crunch and bacon, for well – bacon, and the kids ate it up! Great. Now I gotta bust out the silver spoon and linen napkins for the Clone Wars lunchbag…

ingredients:
2 cups roasted chicken, chopped
1/2 cup apples, small cubes
3 slice bacon, cooked and crumbled
3 Tablespoons mayonnaise**
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1 Tablespoon relish
ground pepper

lettuce
4 croissants split

In a bowl, toss the chicken, apples and bacon. Add the mayo, mustard and relish and toss to coat. I like to add a fair amount of pepper to offset the salt-i-ness of the bacon, but it is up to you.

I feel this tastes the BEST with lettuce on a croissant, but any bread will do. But. Try the croissant. You’ll thank me later.

**I am not a fan of mayo. Nope. Like bananas, it is on my hate list. But in salads, I seem to be able to tolerate it. This recipe uses very little mayo, but feel free to add more if you like.

Part of Fried Chicken: Three Ways
Why is it Hawaiian? No reason except that it’s in every Hawaiian church cookbook known to man. Everyone has their variation – chicken wings are the preferred way to go, but since I serve it to my kids as dinner, more than appetizer, I like tiny bite sized chunks. Really really tasty.

ingredients:
2 pounds chicken, cut into bite sized chunks
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup panko
3 Tablespoons garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
oil for frying

dipping sauce:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger

Start with the sauce by whisking all the ingredients in a small bowl, until dissolved. Set aside.

Prep a pan with oil, I’d say about 1″ deep. Heat to medium high.

In a freezer bag, combine the flour, panko, garlic salt and pepper. Shake to combine. Place the chicken in the bag and shake to coat.

Fry the chicken pieces in the hot oil until nice and brown. Drain on a wire rack – if you drain on paper towels, the chicken just resoaks up that oil, which is pretty sick. You just want nice crispy pieces, not soggy oily ones.

Once all the pieces are cooked, ‘dunk’ them in the dipping sauce and serve.