Tery-Not-So-Aki

Ok, so I found this recipe in my Ziplist email....which I must admit, as far as email subscriptions go, this one is pretty spiffy AND pretty useful....but anyway....I found this:

Slow Cooker Teryaki Chicken

Since I love chicken, love Teryaki sauce and I love jasmine rice, I figured it would be a win-win, for me anyway. The beloved is NOT so fond of Teryaki, so there's that.  Here's what happened: 

Note the beast. This crockpot has been in my life since I first went to college. Some (cough, sputter) 20+ years ago. It has yet to fail. Believe it.

Save yourself some dishes and make the sauce in one pot...like the CROCKpot....then all you have to do is dump the chicken in and you're good to go.

I did remove the chicken to a plate and shred it there...then I threw it back into the sauce to coat it. That might have been the straw that broke the overwhelming camel's back.

I added about half a bag of frozen mixed veggies to the rice before turning on the cooker. The rice to water ration of 1:1.5.  To accommodate the intruding vegetation, I bumped it up to 1.75 cups water.

 Looks fairly similar to the recipe shot...just can't see my sesame seeds because I forgot to add them BEFORE I took this shot. OOPS.

Ok, so this would have been completely and utterly blissful with about 3 cloves less garlic. It was VERY, VERY, VERY garlicky and I'm not altogether certain if I'm just sensitive to large amounts of garlic or what, but it was GARLICKY.  I make it again, I will definitely probably only use about one clove and maybe not even a large clove. Otherwise, you couldn't ask for an easier recipe. Took all of five minutes to throw it together...I cooked it on low for a little over 5 hours....put the rice on to cook about 30 minutes before the chicken was done....and sliced up the green onions, or scallions for you fancy folk, and put it all together on the plate.

Again, it was probably a mistake to put the shredded chicken back into the sauce. That was my fault. But still, garlic abounded!

So then, in the interest of not wasting foods, I decided I might disarm some of that garlic by trying to make it into a shredded BBQ chicken sort of thing.  I added about 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce and about 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, because YES more sugar will kill the garlic.  Sure it will!!! Not. Well, sorta, but instead, it nearly put me into a sugar coma. However, served over a hawaiian bun (with even more sugar), it was a fairly decent and very sweet lunch. I won't do that again. It was good once.

This is, in my guesstimation, a very versatile recipe. You could probably get away with added some onions and mushrooms into the pot too.....don't think I would add broccoli, unless towards the end, as it would get really, really mushy after 5 hours of slow cooking.  Maybe at the 4 hour point, add raw, or even frozen bits....but not any sooner than that.  Maybe even some fresh pineapple. For even MORE sugar. :D  But how can you NOT love pineapple and teryaki together? Seriously!  

So, do try it...and if you love garlic, use the full, required amount. If not, cut back to one clove. Then, enjoy!