Just a Little Taste

I know I said I wasn't really going to be full on posting until the first of the month but today was a So You Forgot to Defrost kind of day if ever there was one.

For those of you who don't know I live in a little town that's about 50 miles away from just about everything, shopping, most dining and pretty much all entertainment.  Today was one of those days that I had to make the 100 mile round trip twice.

After dropping our daughter off to spend the day with her horse I ran to Walmart to pick up some totes for organizing my yarn.  All the totes were sold out but I thought while I was there I'd pick up something that could easily be made into dinner and be finished when I got back from my second round trip later in the evening.

I picked up four pounds of chicken breast. Half to be used tonight and half for tomorrow night (at least now I've got that much of tomorrow planned).

After getting back home I got busy finishing the other half of my shift for my day job.

Before heading into town for the second time I threw dinner into the crockpot.

Inspired by a recipe I found at https://showmetheyummy.com/crockpot-orange-chicken/

Crockpot Orange Chicken with cilantro lime rice and chicken egg rolls.

Chaos cooking is all about being versatile and being ok with making substitutions when you may not have all the ingredients a specific recipe may call for.

I, for example had forgotten that my daughter had used all the honey to make treats for her horse so I substituted some home canned pear syrup in it's place and it worked like a charm.

Once the crockpot was loaded up I was free to go with the confidence that I would have a hot homemade meal waiting when we all got home tonight.

                                         I added onion and bell pepper to the original recipe

My oldest daughter and I joined 9 Round, a kickboxing fitness center today!  She works full time so this limits our time frame to work out to evenings which will make it now, more important than ever to have quick and easy dinner solutions.

When I returned home the house smelled awesome.  I threw some thickener into the sauce and cranked up the heat to allow it to thicken.  While the crockpot was finishing up I made the rice and tossed the egg rolls into the oven.

Everyone was happy with dinner and hubby is excited about leftovers for lunch tomorrow.