Baked Mandarin Chicken

I haven't been doing a lot in the kitchen lately - most of my meals have involved tossing a piece of fish or chicken in the oven and some frozen veggies in the microwave. When I do get "creative", it means I've added garlic to my pizza sauce for my Boboli. This is not the cooking that makes for a great blog post. So I've been quiet. 

But today there was something new in my oven. 

For a while I've been thinking about actually planning out my meals a week or two ahead of time so that (a) I will know that I have food in the house to make a few different things and (b) I won't have to come home from work or the gym or wherever and try to THINK about what to cook. (b) has been my downfall for several months, so I think it will be good to have a plan. 

Tonight was my grocery store run, so I found and decided to try a new recipe for Day 1 of my new dinner plan. I started with this recipe for Baked Mandarin Chicken from SparkRecipes.com

with a few minor changes


(before it went in the oven)

My changes: 

I used 2 bunches of broccoli (they seemed small), 1 10.5oz can of mandarin oranges in juice instead of syrup, and because I couldn't find a Mandarin Sauce in the store this evening, I used a bottle of Orange Ginger marinade I already had. I also omitted the green onions, mostly because I forgot to buy them (but also because I'm not a huge fan). Oh, I also used only about a half a teaspoon of ginger to season the chicken since there was also ginger in the sauce & I used way more garlic. I love garlic. 

(cooked!)

This turned out well & will be on my list to make again & I have leftovers for a couple days worth of lunches. Yay!