Slow Cooker Garlic and Brown Sugar Chicken

Slow Cooker Garlic and Brown Sugar Chicken

4-6 chicken breasts
1 c packed brown sugar
2/3 c vinegar
1/4 cup 7-up
3 T minced garlic
2 T low sodium soy sauce
1 tsp pepper
2 T cornstarch
2 T water
Red pepper flakes (pinch)-optional

Directions:
Spray slow cooker with Pam.  Place chicken in slow cooker.  Mix together brown sugar, vinegar, soda, garlic  soy sauce, and pepper together.  Pour over chicken.  Cook on low 6-8 hrs or high for 4 hours.  Taken chicken out and set aside.  Pour remaining sauce into saucepan.  Place over low heat.  Mix together cornstarch and water and pour into saucepan and mix well.  Let it come to a boil for 2-3 minutes or until thick.  Serve chicken and sauce over cooked brown rice.

Pork Tenderloin with Pan Sauce

Pork Tenderloin with Pan Sauce

1/2 c olive oil
1/3 c low sodium soy sauce
1/4 c red wine vinegar
Juice of 1 lemon (or a couple T lemon juice)
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T parsley
2 tsp dry mustard
black pepper to taste
4 cloves garlic, minced
1lb pork tenderloin

Directions:

Combine all marinade ingredients and reserve 2-3 T.  Place the pork and marinade in a bag and marinate for 3+ hrs.  Preheat oven to 350*.  In a hot skillet over medium-high heat, sear each side of tenderloin.  Bake 30-40 minutes or until the meat has reached 160*.  Let the meat rest 5 min. before slicing.

Pan sauce:
Scrapings from tenderloin
1/2 c chicken broth
1 Tsp cornstarch
reserved marinade.

Option: Marinade overnight and cook in crockpot on Low for 6 hours..

Apple Cinnamon Cheesecake

Apple Cinnamon Cheesecake

1/2 c butter, softened
1/4 c firmly packed light brown sugar
1 c flour
1/4 c quick cooking oats
1/4 c finely chopped walnuts
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk (Not evaporated milk)
3 large eggs
1/2 c frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed
2 medium all purpose apples, cored and sliced

Glaze:
1 T butter
1/4 c apple juice concentrate, thawed
1 tsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions: Preheat oven to 300*  In small bowl, beat 1/2 cup butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add flour, oats, walnuts and cinnamon; mix well.  Press firmly on bottom and halfway up side of a 9" spring-form pan.  Bake 10 minutes.

Beat cream cheese until fluffy in large bowl.  Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth (do not over-beat .  Add eggs and apple juice concentrate; mix well.  Pour into prepared pan.  Bake 45 minutes or until center springs back when lightly touched.  Cool.

Cook apples in remaining 1 T butter until tender-crisp in large skillet.  Arrange on top of cheesecake.  Drizzle with Glaze.  Chill.

Glaze: In small saucepan, combine apple juice concentrate, cornstarch and ground cinnamon; mix well.  Over low heat, cook and stir until thickened.


Note: This took longer to bake than 45 minutes. Quite a bit longer.  Enough that I wonder if I shouldn't have raised the oven temp to 325 or 350, even though the recipe doesn't call for it.

Next time I make it, for the crust I'm going to use less flour and more oats for a more granola-y flavor.


Here is the recipe online

New Years Goals

It's almost February, and I think by now, statistically most people have already failed/quite their New Year's Resolutions, but I'm not that late announcing them am I?

I like to have a lot of Goals/Resolutions, that way, surely I'll succeed at some, fail at others, but odds are I won't be a TOTAL failure! *wink*

1.  Floss Daily.  I make this one every year and fail miserably every year.  But I'm happy to announce, I'm still going strong!
2.  Do a better job of keeping on top of the house.  Cleaner, more picked up etc.  So far I'm doing really well at going to bed at night with a pretty descent house.  I'm trying to follow the "1 minute Rule", which is, if it takes less than 1 minute to do, don't say, "I'll do it later." (this is another annual and annually broken resolution)
3.  Practice yoga (2-3 times per week) for stretching purposes.  I found a paid ($2.99) app that I had seen recommended, Yoga Studio.  It has "classes" of varying lengths (15 min. 30 min., 1 hr. etc) that have different focuses, like balance, strength, core, flexibility etc.  and each of these subcategories and times are available at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels.  I have completed 15 minutes of beginner flexibility  and let's just say that I might need a pre-beginner level. haha.
4.  Use my post bedtime time more effectively.  I do NOT mean, cleaning, picking up, chores etc.  I like my evening.  I like a lot of down time.  I DO mean a little picking up/straightening etc. but mostly I want to use this time to foam roll, stretch, do yoga etc.  Relaxing activities that I never seem to get accomplished during the day.
5.  Run 1000 miles in 2013.  I made this goal in 2012 also and I was ~150 miles shy of reaching it.  But taking most of December off to try to recover from Plantar Fasciitis certainly didn't help the mileage count!

Leta is 3!

If you're thinking, "how is that possible!?!?"  I am right there with ya!  We had Leta's "family" birthday party on January 12th.  We ended up with a bit of a weather scare, it was drizzly and cold and things were starting to freeze and the forecast predicted more rain to come, but we stuck with it and lucked out with the weather, it didn't continue or get worse, however we did have some who didn't want to risk the drive if things did take a turn for the worse.  Leta was SOOO excited for her party.  She has been talking about her birthday party since October when Luke had his!  It was small, but she was happy.  She got really excited at each arrival and felt very proud of herself to get to answer the door each time.

I made her a "Rapunzel Tower Cake" which for my lack of decorating skills turned out quite nicely, I thought, but I won't be expecting any calls requesting me to decorate a cake.  I had it all planned out that Leta would open the gifts that I knew were clothes first so she would be excited about them and then toys next, but Luke knew which package contained the "big toy gift" and he could hardly stand the excitement and so she opened a Rapunzel Tower near the beginning and could hardly open anything after that.  I finally opened a few for her to speed things along.  Sorry for the cake only photos, Kyle took the pictures on his phone and I haven't gotten copies of them from him yet.

Max's first haircut

Max's First Haircut: 18 months

Max did pretty well.  He was very wiggly and wanted to know what Chandra was doing back there!  Her comb and a sucker helped. No more curly baby mullet at the Soper House! Having Max get his haircut made me realize, I don't get to see Chandra enough! I guess we'll just have to have more kids* so I'll get to keep seeing her! (*that is NOT an announcement)

Leta's First Haircut: 2 years

Luke's First Haircut: 10 months

Luke's 5 year well check.

Yes, I know his birthday was in October.  But his well check happened today.  Anyway.  He is 41.5" and 38lbs, which puts him in the 10% for both height and weight.  He's a happy, healthy little boy....My heart is full.