LooneySpoons: Wowie Maui Chicken

Y'all know how much I love one pot/dish dinners by now, right?  This is another wonderful one that I found in the Looneyspoons Collection Cookbook.  It's like an all in one sweet and sour chicken.  I did change a few things like the amount of chicken (I used 2 large breasts), the pineapple (I used chunks and a bigger can), the rice (I figured there was no way brown rice could skillet cook in 20 minutes) and the peppers (we keep bell peppers frozen in strips in the freezer, I just grabbed enough to make a cup).  The only caveat is my rice wasn't real tender after 20 minutes and there was more liquid in my recipe than the original.  I'm thinking maybe adding a half a cup of water would do it.

The dish was very good.  Definitely an easy replacement for sweet and sour chicken that you'd get as take-out.

Wowie Maui Chicken
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 lbs chicken breast, cubed
2 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 (20 oz) can pineapple chunks, in juice; undrained
1 1/2 cups rice (uncooked)
3/4 cup finely chopped carrots
1/2 cup each chopped red and green peppers
1/3 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup chopped green onions

Heat olive oil in large non stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken.  Cook and stir until chicken is lightly browned, about 5-6 minutes.

Add all remaining ingredients, except green onions.  Mix well, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, until rice is tender.  Add green onions during last 5 minutes of cooking time.

Cookies For Rookies-The Looneyspoons Collection

Since I love cooking and baking I go through a lot of cookbooks.  The most recent one I had was The Looneyspoons Collection by Janet & Greta Podleski.  I'd seen one of their cookbooks before about a decade ago, when I lived in Seattle.  And the cookbooks are really cute.  They're illustrated, with pictures on almost every single page and have a lot of nutritional information in them. 

As you might have noticed, here at Rosie Discovers, we're suckers for anything with peanut butter and chocolate in them.  And I do mean anything.  So it was a no-brainer to try out the Cookies for Rookies recipe.  I quite like this recipe because it makes a more moist cookie than the other oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe that we love.  It reminds me more of a soft peanut butter cookie.  It even has the cute fork marks on top.  There are only two things I changed in the recipe.  First, I used a peanut butter with honey already in it (which I absolutely love!!).  Second, I made my cookies smaller.  A 1 1/2 inch cookie is a little big for me, so I used a tablespoon cookie scoop to make mine.  If you make a smaller cookie, you should get about 3 1/2 dozen out of the recipe and you'll also have to adjust the cooking time to about 7 minutes.

Cookies For Rookies

1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using a mixer, beat together brown sugar, butter, peanut butter and egg on low speed till well blended.  Add dry and chocolate chips and mix well.

Using a cookie scoop, scoop out dough 2 inches apart onto greased or lined cookie sheets.  Flatten with a fork to 1/4 inch thickness.  Bake about 7 minutes.  Watch to make sure cookies don't dry out and over bake.

To me this is the perfect cookie size.  This way you can have more than one, because you'll definitely want too.