Make Ahead Meals For Busy Moms Virtual Book Tour

I've never done a virtual book tour. And I'm a terrible cook. But I'm a mom, I suppose (do you ever lose that moniker once you've reproduced?) and I am definitely BUSY.

So the idea of a virtual book tour with a cookbook intrigued me. I could do that, I thought.

So, way back in September, I agreed to join in this virtual book tour, Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms. Send me a recipe, I told the publicist. I'll cook it up and post my results here.

The publicist liked the idea. She sent me a recipe. Here is what the author sent:

OK...for Deb Nance, I'm giving you my easy Teriyaki Chicken Recipe. You marinate it overnight and pour the entire contents into a baking dish at dinner time. Couldn't be easier!

Teriyaki Chicken

This is one of those meals I like to keep on hand in the freezer.

1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons water
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
½ cup less sodium soy sauce
¼ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon ground ginger
8 - 10 skinless, boneless chicken thighs

In a gallon freezer bag, combine all of the ingredients except the chicken. Mix thoroughly. Add the chicken and seal. Refrigerate up to 24 hours before cooking or freeze in a labeled freezer bag up to 3 months.

~Cooking Directions~

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the chicken and all of the liquid in a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish (uncovered). Bake for 30 minutes, turn the pieces over, and bake for 30 more
minutes. This chicken can also be grilled on medium heat about 12 -14 minutes on each side. It is done when the juice runs clear. Serves 4 - 5.

This sounded pretty easy. I could do this, I thought.

But somehow I got it in my head that I needed to post this on SEPTEMBER 10. Of course, September 10 was also Meet the Teacher Night at school. I dashed into Kroger and snagged the ingredients and zipped home and set to work.

I had a few problems:

(1) I had zero time; I had to be back at school in minutes.
(2) I forgot to buy brown sugar. And soy sauce. (And, no, before you ask, I don't keep those on hand....I told you: I'm a terrible cook.)
(3) I spilled the orange juice all over the counter when I was measuring it. Orange juice is sticky when it dries. I was in a hurry. I found lots of sticky spots the next day.
(4) The orange juice spilled all over the recipe. The words blurred. I wasn't quite sure how much garlic power and ginger to put in so I just poured a big pile of it into the plastic bag and hoped for the best.
(5) My refrigerator was packed and I could barely find a place to leave the bag overnight. Someone apparently came through in the night and bumped the bag (Why would someone do this?!!) and the bag leaked out into a huge puddle at the bottom on the refrigerator. More stickiness.
(6) I was so tired the next day, after shopping for ingredients and preparing this meal and going to Meet the Teacher Night, that it was all I could do to put the chicken into the oven and bake it.

But it was good. Really good. Delicious actually, especially when you imagine how good it would be if I had actually used soy sauce instead of Worchestershire and brown sugar rather than honey. And if I'd known how much of the spices to include.

So I can't speak for anything but this single recipe as I never received a copy of the book. But this one recipe was quite good, very good for this busy mom, this terrible cook.