Experimenting is yummy, too!

During one of our trips back to Philly years ago, my mom made us pistachio chicken. I don't remember what was in it other than chicken and pistachios, but I remember it being good. I came across a recipe for cashew chicken last week and decided I'd substitute pistachios. Just for funzies. 

"Cashew Pistachio Chicken" (6 quart pot)

~6 chicken boobs

~1 1/2 cups pistachios 

~1 cup celery, chopped

~1 can of cream of mushroom soup

~1 (7 oz) can mushrooms, stems and pieces

~1/4 cup green onions, chopped

~1 1/2 T soy sauce

~2 T butter

Place chicken in crock pot.
Mix all of the other ingredients in a large bowl. Pour mixture over chicken.

6 servings.

This was delicious. The top chicken dish so far. The chicken came out so tender and, man...the fact that we have tons leftover is not a bad thing. AT ALL.  

"Mug Brownies" (3.5 quart pot)

Last week, a friend shared a link to a site that is A-MAZ-ING. (Thanks, Heather!) A woman's 2008 New Year's Resolution was to use her crock pot for 365 days straight. She did it! AND she cooks gluten free! You thought I crocked a lot. Ha! She's written 2 cookbooks and I totally just put them on my Amazon wish list. *hint, hint* I spent most of this week going though her site and picking out recipes I'd like to try. This dessert was near the top of the list.

I made the following dessert for three reasons. 

1. It looked awesome. I had visions of the kiddo coming home from a snowy day at kindergarten asking for a mug of hot chocolate and referring to this instead of "a normal mug of hot chocolate".

1. As a test run to see how tomorrow's dessert will go. You're intrigued, now, yes? And there's no chocolate in tomorrow's dessert. Need more? It's pumpkin-y!!!! *drool*

2. The opened box of brownie mix that was used for the chocolate custard cake was sitting in the pantry begging me to use the rest of it. I swear! I didn't know how much was left and I didn't want to make the same crock recipe again, so I used my imagination and winged it. The back of the box says to use 2 eggs for cake-y brownies and 1 for fudge-y. We like our brownies fudge-y, so this is what I did...

~An opened box of brownie mix that is missing 2 cups worth (I used Duncan Hines dark chocolate.)

~1 egg 

~1/3 cup vegetable oil

~1/3 cup water

I meant to decrease the oil and water slightly, but I didn't remember that that was my plan until after I'd mixed everything. Genius!

Mix ingredients in medium bowl.

Grease 2 mugs.  

Fill mugs evenly with mixture. (Both mugs ended up being about 2/3 full.)

Cover and cook on high for about an hour or until they pass the knife test.
When done cooking, unplug the crock pot and let cool for a half hour. (Or risk burning your phalanges.)

Cross your fingers and hope that your "It's chocolatey, so it can't turn out poorly" theory holds true.

Serves 4.

This was actually really good, too. It turned out better than I thought it would and we ate it cold this time around. It's a lot of brownie for one person, but only 2 mugs would fit into my smaller pot. Maybe when kiddo gets home from his snowy day at kindergarten, he'll share his mug of hot chocolate with mom and dad.