Amy's Spicy Honey Orange Glazed Chicken with Soy Sauce

I have a treat for you all today that I hope you will enjoy: it's another recipe!

My Angry Orchard Beer Bread was received so well I thought that I would try another recipe with you. Today I will be sharing another one of my own recipes: Amy's Spicy Honey Orange Glazed Chicken with Soy Sauce.

I made this for my husband and I back in February and it was a huge hit! I got the idea from a frozen meal that I had eaten at work that was an orange glazed chicken and rice meal. It was actually a really good meal, but I wanted more! So I took down all of the ingredients on the back of the box and figured I could make something even better. I had to do a little bit of recipe searching to figure out proportions to get a glaze but in the end the recipe was my own creation. None of the other recipes I found had everything in it that I wanted. Sweet and Savory. Glazed. Mushrooms, Carrots, and Rice. And I even made it Spicy after my initial trial of the recipe. 

I will be including directions to make yours with or without the spice. Without the spice is how I first intended this dish to be made. The spicy version uses chipotle pepper so it has a smoky spiciness. The original way is sweeter and has stronger flavors of orange and honey. Feel free to play with the proportions of everything to get a flavor that you prefer. But be sure to try it! By the way, it's amazing both ways. :)

(And please excuse the pictures. My camera isn't that great, nor is the lighting in my kitchen.)

You will need (in no order at all): Chicken breasts, OJ, Butter, Mushrooms(I've used canned and fresh), Soy Sauce, Honey, Rice (I used instant), salt, pepper, chipotle pepper, carrots, honey (not pictured) ( and I have onion flakes pictured, but I didn't use them...)

Prepare all of your ingredients first to make your process go more smoothly.

Julienne your carrots and mince your mushrooms, you also want to have your chicken cut into 2" wide strips (so each breast is cut into 3-4 long thing pieces, like tenderloins),

you can prepare your glaze early on if you prefer, but there is time while your chicken cooks. You will have a glaze for your chicken and a very similar sauce for your rice so be sure to prepare them both.

Heat your pan and melt your butter. Add the chicken when the pan is hot. Cook chicken approximately 4 minutes on each side, until seared. At the same time begin cooking your rice.

When your rice is done cooking, add your carrots and mushrooms to steam them, and pour the sauce for the rice over the rice mixture. Keep rice on low heat to help the sauce absorb.

About the same time your rice is getting done (before adding the carrots, mushrooms, and sauce) your chicken should be ready for the glaze. Pour the glaze into your pan and continue to cook on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, until glaze begins to thicken. Your glaze should be boiling during this process.

When your rice has absorbed most of the liquid from the sauce and the glaze for your chicken is thick, it's done! Serve chicken over rice and spoon addition glaze over the dish.

I hope you enjoy it!

Here's the recipe: 

AMY'S (Spicy) HONEY ORANGE GLAZED CHICKEN WITH SOY SAUCE

Prep:10 minutes

Cook Time:15 minutes

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE GLAZE:

1/4c honey

1/3c orange juice

1/4c soy sauce (or 2T for the not spicy version)

1T garlic powder or 1 garlic clove, minced

1tsp chipotle seasoning or your spice of choice (or 1/4tsp for not spicy version)

2tsp celery salt

FOR THE CHICKEN:

1/2tsp salt

1/2tsp pepper

4 chicken breasts, cut into 2" strips

2T butter or margarine

cooking spray

FOR THE RICE:

1c instant brown rice

1c water

1 4oz can mushrooms, minced

10 baby carrots, julienned (about 1/2c)

1/3c orange juice

2tsp celery salt

2tsp soy sauce

2tsp honey

1tsp chipotle seasoning (or leave this out for rice that isn't spicy)

DIRECTIONS

1) Begin by spraying your frying pan with cooking spray, add butter and let melt. Season chicken with salt and pepper. When your pan is hot, add chicken and cook on medium-high heat until seared, about 4 minutes per side.

2) At the same time, prepare your rice as per instructions on the box with the water.

3) While chicken is cooking combine all ingredients for the glaze and whisk. You may need to microwave the sauce for about 10 seconds to get the honey to soften enough to be stirred into the mixture.

4) At this point you can also whisk together 1/3c orange juice, 2t celery salt, 2t soy sauce, 2t honey, and 1t chipotle seasoning to make a sauce for the rice.

5) When the chicken is just cooked through, add the glaze to the pan and continue to cook on medium-high heat until it begins to  thicken, about 5 minutes.

Your rice should also be done by now. Turn the heat down to medium-low and add the carrots, mushrooms, and prepared sauce for rice to the saucepan and cover for about 5 minutes to get the vegetables softened and warm up the sauce. 

7) When everything is done, serve chicken over rice and spoon glaze from frying pan onto chicken. 

8) Enjoy! 

Glass Jars are Fun!

A while ago I showed you all how I changed my bag of tangled ribbon into neatly wrapped individually ribbon clothespins. I told you that I had to put them into jars yet and here ya go! 

This is what my ribbon "Collection" looks like these days:

A while ago I purchased a single jar like these with the No. 1 on  it in black. I purchased it at Tuesday Morning. After searching for similar jars almost everywhere else and failing I decided that I may as well try to find them again so I went back to the store to look. I searched all over and couldn't find them, until of course I was about to leave and they were on the shelf closest to the registers! SCORE. So of course I got three. And I love them. I wanted clasping jars because I didn't want to have to worry about my klutzy self knocking the lids off. And I knew that these jars were made of a durable, less breakable glass. So again, a plus if they get knocked over. Plus I love the numbers on them. So Adorable!

I also managed to find some miniature jars at Target for a buck! Same concept: clasping jars. I initially bought them to organize my junk drawer (my nails and screws and such), but they ended up being too big. I think I will just have to use a plastic tackle box thing. 

Anyhoo...I was having a problem with my spices. I've bought some that the store bags themselves, not in shaker containers, because it's cheaper that way and there's more of a variety but I have been quandering how to keep them fresh in their bags. I could buy shakers for them,  but at the store where I bought the spices it's at least $1.25 for shaker containers. So I figured why not use those little glass jars for my spices? Since I already had them and they technically were cheaper than the shaker bottles. They'd be cute displayed on the counter too when full. So I went to work filling them and making labels. I love the turnout!

I used Spellbinders Large Scalloped Circles and a Sharpie to make the Tags. 

Then I just used Tacky Glue to adhere them to the lids of the jars.

Make sure to wash out your jars before you put them spices into them and let dry thoroughly. 

Then fill with your spices!

Angry Orchard Apple Cinnamon White Chocolate Chip Beer Bread

So I know that this is not a food blog, but who doesn't love a great recipe? I posted this picture on my Facebook page and it was such a hit that I thought I would share it with you! You lucky ducks. 

Doesn't it just look scrumptious?! 

Here's the ingredients you need:

First you need to slice and dice a small apple. I used Fuji because that what I had on hand but you can use any apple you prefer to bake with.

Pour your bread mix (I don't like making bread from scratch so I always use Tastefully Simple's Beer Bread Mix-just add beer!)  into a large bowl and then add all other dry ingredients to the bowl.

Throw your diced apples on top of all of that.

Now slowly pour in your beer,

Mix your ingredients while the foam from the beer is still fizzy. The yeast in your beer is what makes this bread rise (just a little). I hate yeast bread recipes so I always love making beer bread. I never have yeast on hand, but always beer!

Mix until ingredients are combined well. No need to over mix.

That's some good looking dough. Can you see the chips in there? Yum!

Pour your dough into a 9x5 bread pan and sprinkle cinnamon on top. You can also add some butter on top at this point and your bread will have an even more deliciously brown color when it comes out of the oven.

Just look at it!

All brown and delicious on top, yet still ooey gooey dough in the middle. Just how it should be. :)

Slice it up and eat it. Or share it. I shared with my mom and co-workers and this lovely little loaf was gone in a day. No need to even add butter to it. It was perfect just as it was. And though I love me some beer bread, it didn't even taste like beer bread. Just like apple bread. And cinnamon. And Fall. That's how it smells too. 

Enjoy!

Angry Orchard Apple Cinnamon White Chocolate Chip Beer Bread

Ingredients:

One Tastefully Simple Beer Bread Mix (or use your favorite beer bread recipe)

12oz Angry Orchard

1/4c Chips

1/4c White Chocolate Chips

1 small apple, diced

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

2T butter (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9x5 bread pan. 

Dice your apple and then slice the diced pieces in half so that they are not so chunky.

Add your bread mix to a large mixing bowl. Add your chips, apple, and 1 tsp cinnamon.

Add vanilla. 

Slowly pour beer into bowl and then begin mixing right away while foam is still present. Mix until ingredients are well incorporated.

Pour dough into greased pan evenly. Shake back and forth if necessary to even dough out. 

Sprinkle remaining 1tsp cinnamon on top of the raw loaf. Spread butter on top of loaf for a more golden brown bread (you can melt it first and pour it on or spread it on like you do a piece of toast). 

Bake for 50-55 minutes (I always do 50 minutes or less because I prefer my bread under-cooked). 

Let the bread sit for 30 minutes before slicing, but remove from pan after 5 minutes and place on a cooling rack to prevent the bread from cooking further. 

Slice and enjoy spread with butter and a hot coffee! 

ENJOY :)