The original recipe uses pork — General Tso’s Slow-Cooked Pork Tacos With Orange-Broccoli Slaw — but boneless, skinless chicken thighs are an easy substitution. That’s what I did. The chicken thighs only need to cook for about 4 hours on low in your Crock-Pot.
I omitted the cornstarch, and once the chicken was fully cooked I removed it in order to shred it fully. While I was doing that, I reduced the remaining sauce in a small pan on the stove, and found that I could get it to thicken slightly in a short amount of time. If you do use the cornstarch, you will likely get a much glossier, thicker sauce, so the choice is yours.
I used my own dressing for the broccoli slaw, which includes sriracha, honey, fresh lemon, and rice wine vinegar. The slaw is better if it sits for a few hours in the dressing, but its crisp and spicy flavor is a good compliment to the saucy chicken.
A. was happy to eat a couple of these chicken tortillas, and even asked for them again the next night. On the other hand, I could barely get G. to try a plain tortilla. So, a semi-success. I liked the flavor of this dish a lot, and think it performs well as a slow-cooker meal. It worth repeating a couple of times a year.
Tired of beef meatballs in marinara sauce? This is a delicious alternative that can still be served with spaghetti if you have picky kids like mine. The recipe for Scallion Meatballs with Soy-Ginger Glaze comes from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, and it is a keeper.
I followed the recipe exactly, except that I did use the full amount of fresh ginger and I bumped up the amount of cilantro (because I love it). The ground turkey mixture is extremely wet, but if you gently shape the meatballs as Deb explains — dampen your hands with cold water and move the mixture from hand to hand as you form it into a ball — they’ll turn out fine. I had to re-wet my hands a couple of times.
These meatballs are fantastic. The sauce, which reduces beautifully, is thick and glossy and just like you’d get at a good restaurant. The meatballs are tender and bursting with a light, fresh favor thanks to the herbs. Because the sauce is a salty and clings to the meatballs, it contrasts perfectly with the lighter, sweeter note of the turkey.
Unfortunately, I could not get either of my boys to try them. I think on another night, A. would have tried a meatball without the sauce — he loves cilantro too — but he was tired and not in the mood to be adventurous. I froze a good portion of the meatballs in their sauce, but did not care for the way they later defrosted and reheated. As reheated leftovers, the meatballs were slightly spongy and watery, and the sauce reduced a bit further and was too salty for my taste. So, if you make them, eat them fresh! I’m sure in most households, there won’t be any leftovers to worry about, anyway.
This is the third time I’m posting about this recipe for Sriracha-Glazed Chicken and Onions, so you know it must be good! Anna from Cookie Madness passed it on to me originally, and when I first made it back in 2008 I did it without sriracha. It was good, but a very different result both visually and flavor-wise than using hot sauce.
When I posted about this chicken dish last year, I was all about the sriracha and I reiterated how important it is to cook the onions low and slow, separately from the chicken. It’s not an exaggeration to say I had those onions on the stove for 45 minutes when I made it again last week.
The sauce is a deep mahogany color, and the onions taste buttery from their long cook time (no dairy in this recipe, though). I served the chicken with whole wheat thin spaghetti, and a chopped salad that included pea shoots, peppers, cucumber, and broccoli. This is one recipe that will remain in our rotation — I just need to remember to make it more often.
The weather has reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day” lately, with incessant hard rain and constantly gray skies. In the middle of the deluge, though, there was a break for a couple of hours of weak sun on Tuesday afternoon, and I was able to cook this meal on the grill rather than the stove top.
The recipe for Teriyaki Turkey Sliders comes from Dinners for a Year and Beyond, the blog of personal chef Amy, who has tons of great dinner ideas for families. The flavor of these small burgers is excellent, even if you neglect to brush them with hoisin sauce while cooking. I think ground turkey takes the soy sauce, scallion, and hoisin mixture perfectly — the turkey is so mild it doesn’t compete with the seasoning, and you do feel like you’re eating an Asian-influence burger. I overcooked mine a little, so they weren’t as juicy as they could have been. But paying better attention to my grill, or even adding an egg to the meat mixture, would easily remedy that flaw. We plopped our burgers on whole wheat buns with a little salad mix on top; my dad added ketchup as well. I wasn’t able to convince either of my boys to try the burgers, though.
Since I had the grill on already, I sliced up a fresh pineapple, using a melon baller to remove the core from each slice before putting them on the grill. I didn’t add any kind of glaze to the fruit, because the natural sugars caramelize beautifully without it. My broccoli slaw was a quickie production: packaged broccoli slaw mix, and a dressing made with light mayo, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper. It was lackluster, so say the least. Too bad, since I do have some wonderful slaw recipes, like Sweet Sesame Cabbage & Radish Slaw, Cashew Cabbage Slaw with Sesame Dressing, or Spicy Cabbage Slaw, in my arsenal.
Regardless, it was uplifting to eat such a cheery meal without hearing rain pelting down on our roof. The reprieve was short-lived, though… by bath time the skies had opened again.
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more about me and CITK, and keep in touch:
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Cheesy Kale Crisps: We rarely eat kale now that our farm share is over, and I want to fix that. I've wanted to try using nutritional yeast, and this recipe looks like a tasty way to do it.
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more 
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