Crocktoberfest....AGAIN!

As promised, here is another recipe for Crocktoberfest, I just tossed it in my crockpot so I'll be cooking along today!

Crockpot orange chicken, is a recipe I found at Pursuit of Happiness I took the reviews and edits into account and will reflect them below after the original recipe.

Ingredients:
• boneless chicken breasts, chopped into small chunks
• 1/3 cup flour
• olive oil*
• 1/2 T salt**
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 3 T ketchup
• 6 oz. frozen orange juice concentrate (thaw or throw it in the microwave for 45 seconds)
• 4 T brown sugar


In a bowl mix salt, vinegar, ketchup, orange juice concentrate and brown sugar.  Coat bite sized chicken pieces in flour, shake off excess and fry in the heated olive oil.  Mix and put in crockpot, low 5-6*** or high 2-3 hours.


Now for my changes
* I replaced olive oil with sesame oil, because I have it, and I love the smell/taste of the things I cook in it.
**  I changed the 1/2 T salt to 1/2 T soy sauce.  Still contains sodium, but gives it a slight Asian zing as well.
*** Most reviewers had success with this recipe on low for 2-3 hours, so I have it on low and will check it at the 2 and 3 hour marks to judge how it's coming along.  Because this is such a quick recipe, next time I am going to try making it in a skillet, because honestly if you just fried the chicken up a little longer, it would be done and could be mixed with the sauce right away.  Tonight I'll be serving this with instant white rice (I had grand plans to make a batch of fried rice, didn't happen) and frozen pork egg rolls.


I'll report back later with pictures and to let you know how it turned out!


******UPDATE******

After 2 hours, the sauce was gloriously thickened to the 

perfect consistency.

I checked the orange chicken at the two hour mark as planned (on low).  Perfection.  I set the time for another half an hour and started the rice and eggs rolls.  I took some broccoli and pineapple chunks and tossed it in to finish off.

Half an hour later I had a dish of orange chicken w/pineapple & broccoli, pork egg rolls and white rice.  Egg rolls were good, as we get the same frozen brand every time, rice was, well rice.  The chicken was.....good.  It's no Panda Express orange chicken but it is comparable to PF Chang's citrus chicken.  It was too citrusy for me, too sugary sweet.  The pineapple and broccoli lent their respective tastes (and added a full serving of both fruits/veggies to each serving of chicken) but it was not enough to overpower the orange.  I also had a slight flour aftertaste as well.  I'm wondering if the length of cooking helps diminish that, because the chicken was done and very tender.  I wouldn't want to cook it much longer for fear of it drying out and the sauce becoming overly syrupy.  I would make this again, with plain orange juice rather than the concentrate.  I would skip the ketchup as well, I don't feel it really added anything to the sauce.  I am rather disappointed so far with my two crocktober recipes.