Most of us home cooks have long known how valuable a slow cooker is.  How great is it to put a bunch of ingredients into the pot, turn it on, and hours later be rewarded with a great aroma and a (hopefully) tasty meal?

Now I'm going to share a revelation that most of you moms will laugh and roll your eyes at, but I had the impression that when I stayed at home with my baby, I'd have all this extra time to cook and clean.  I'll pause while you wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes.

All better and composed now?  Ok.  So anyway, I've now figured out how difficult it is to care of a baby and brush your teeth, let alone cook a meal, and I'm back to the time we decided to try to become champions of the slow cooker.  We still have a long way to go, but I've added another recipe to my fairly small repertoire- slow cooker honey sesame chicken.  If you like Asian inspired foods, then this one is right up your alley.  It's easy and light, with a sauce that works nicely over rice or with noodles.  I love, too, that it's made with ingredients found in your home and not ones that you'd need to visit the Asian market to find.  I made it for my sister and me to eat one evening, and we both agreed this recipe is a keeper.

I slightly changed some of the recipe, so I'll post what I did, and the recipe title is a link to the original.

Slow Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken
adapted from Lindsay Weiss

1 1/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (thighs would be fine too)
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons diced onion
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 teaspoon nut or seed oil (I used flax oil)
2 teaspoons canola oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 small package snow peas (not frozen, from the produce section)
Sesame seeds

Cut chicken into cubes or strips.  Season chicken with lightly with salt and pepper, put into crock pot. In a small bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, onion, ketchup, oil, garlic and pepper flakes. Pour over chicken. Cook on low for 3-4 hours or on high 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 hours, or just until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from crock pot, leave sauce. Stir in corn starch until completely dissolved. Replace lid and cook sauce on high for ten more minutes or until slightly thickened. Cut chicken into bite size pieces, then return to pot and toss with sauce before serving. Stir in snow peas. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve over rice or noodles.

Notes

• The original recipe called for sesame oil, and the one time I bought it for a meal I didn't like it at all, though that may have been toasted sesame oil.  Anyway, I used flaxseed oil, because weirdly enough I did have some of that.  I imagine almost any seed or nut oil would work, and if all else fails, just leave it out.
• I used a small slow cooker (1 qt) and this cooked quickly.  I used chicken breasts, but next time will use thighs as the breats were just slightly tough.