Tag Archives: orange

Honey Orange Baked Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans

23 Jan

I’m not sure how, but I had a lot of sweet potatoes.  I think I forgotten I had some and just kept getting more.  Anyway, I have made chicken and roast potatoes many times, but just with russet or gold potatoes, not with sweet potatoes.  To somewhat match the sweetness of the potatoes, I decided to make a honey orange sauce to pour over the chicken.  I baked it all together in a pan with green beans, and was very happy with the result!

Honey Orange Baked Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans

Honey Orange Baked Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans

What you need:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 pound green beans
1 small onion, diced
1/4 cup honey
Juice of 1 orange (about 1/3 cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning blend

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 425 F.

In a small bowl, whisk together honey, orange juice, olive oil, and Italian seasoning blend.

Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of a roasting pan.  Add sweet potatoes, green beans, and onions to the pan.  Pour half of the sauce over sweet potatoes, green beans, and onion.  Toss to coat evenly.

Place chicken breasts on top.  Pour remaining sauce over chicken.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until chicken reaches a temperature of 165 F.

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Orange Honey Sesame Chicken

14 Feb

Sesame Chicken has been a favorite in our house for quite a while now.  It’s a go to dish when we have vegetables to use up that are good in a stir fry, or just as a chicken dish to throw in the weekly meal plan.  I have gotten a ton of oranges lately from Bountiful Baskets and Sunizona FarmBoxes, so I decided to try to incorporate fresh squeezed orange juice somehow.  Also, the Sesame Chicken uses white sugar, but this time I decided to use honey in its place.  I have a lot of honey from a Bountiful Baskets 12 pound bucket to use, plus it’s more natural than the sugar I have.  It turned out really great!  It’s not overly orange tasting, which is what I was going for.  I also added in some fresh grated ginger, which I think I may do with the Sesame Chicken in the future as well.  (Quick tip for ginger, keep it in the freezer to keep longer, then just take it out, grate what you need, and put it back!)

Orange Honey Sesame Chicken

 

 

Orange Honey Sesame Chicken

What you need:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into 1″-2″ pieces
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1/2 tsp dark sesame oil
2 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
1/4 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
Veggies of your choice (tonight I used broccoli and green onions)
Cooked rice

How to make it:

Place flour and chicken in a gallon size zipper bag.  Shake to coat chicken in flour.  Heat olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet in batches and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, or until white and no longer pink.

Meanwhile, in a medium-sized skillet, combine the soy sauce and honey in the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the honey is mixed well with the soy sauce. Stir in the orange juice, grated ginger, sesame oil and sesame seeds.  Pour over the chicken in the larger skillet and stir to coat.

Add in any chopped veggies you want.  For this batch, I used just broccoli.  Other times I have used different combinations of broccoli, onion, green, yellow, and red peppers, shredded carrots, bean sprouts, snow peas, water chestnuts, and mushrooms.  Cover your skillet and cook until veggies have softened.  I tend to leave the veggies a little crispy still because my husband likes them still crispy.  After other veggies have softened, add the green onions.

Serve over cooked rice.

Note: You can buy toasted sesame seeds, usually with in the section with other Asian grocery items.  If you can’t find them, to toast sesame seeds, place in a dry skillet and toast, shaking the pan, over medium high heat for a minute or so, or until fragrant and lightly browned. Do this first and cook the chicken in the same skillet to pick up more sesame flavor.  Also, if you are using a lot of veggies, you may want to double the ingredients for the sauce so there is some for the veggies.

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Tangy Honey Glazed Ham

16 Nov

 

Oh my, this ham was delicious!  My husband and I had to stop ourselves from eating too much!  I’m glad I finally decided that tonight was the night for some Zaycon Foods ham!  I first cut the ham into 3 sections, which of course I didn’t cut very evenly, so this section was about 4.5 pounds of the 10 pounds that it was.  Oh well.  It was a good size for us, with slices leftover to lunch tomorrow.  This was a fully cooked, boneless ham, so really, I just had to make sure the ham was heated though, then added the glaze and cooked a little longer for added flavor.  Yum!  This glaze was perfect since I received a pineapple and oranges at Bountiful Baskets this past weekend.  The recipe called for pineapple juice, but I just took fresh pineapple chunks and pureed them in the blender.  The honey was from a bucket of honey I bought a while back that I finally divided into smaller jars today.  Everything tastes better fresh!  This does have Dijon mustard, so if you aren’t a fan, I think you could leave it out and still have a nice glaze with the rest of the ingredients.

 

Tangy Honey Glazed Ham
Based on recipe here

What you need:

1 ham (mine was fully cooked, boneless, 4.5 pounds in weight)
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup pureed fresh pineapple (or 1/3 cup pineapple juice)
Juice of 1 orange (or 1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon cloves

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 325 F.  Cook ham according to type and weight, using guidelines on package or here.  For my ham, I lined a roasting pan with foil, set the ham in, added 1/2 cup water to the pan, and covered the ham in foil.  I cooked it for 45 minutes to make sure it was heated through.

Meanwhile, combine the ingredients for the glaze in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.

Once ham has finished cooking, remove the foil cover.  Pour 1/3 of the glaze over the ham, and cook uncovered for 10 minutes.  Repeat until glaze is gone, for a total of 30 minutes of cooking uncovered with the glaze.  Check to make sure the temperature is at 140 F if the ham was in original packaging, or 165 F for re-packaged or leftover ham.  Cook additional time as needed.  Slice and serve!

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