I love December! I love the festive feeling in the air, the bustle of people looking for that perfect gift, the lights everywhere. Mostly I love the feeling of togetherness. Since my boyfriend has started a new job he has been working evenings so it is important to me to remind him how much I love him and wait to spend time with him when he gets home. I wanted to prepare something warm and filling, yet simple so we could eat and chill on the sofa watching the last episode of AHS: Roanoke on Saturday night and came up with a sweet and spicy chicken with Hawaiian influences. Full of seasoning and sauced this was a perfect dinner to end the day.
Ingredients
For Chicken
* 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
* 2 tsp garlic powder
*3 tsp paprika
*2 tsp black pepper
*1 tsp salt
*2 tsp cilantro leaves
*2 tsp cayenne pepper
*1 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
For Shrimp
* 1 lb medium shrimp (mine was already de-veined and had the tails taken off)
* 2 tbsp pineapple juice (from can)
* 1 tsp salt
* 3 tsp cilantro leaves
* 2 tsp cayenne
* 1 tsp paprika
For Sauce
* 1/2 jar chili sauce
* 1/2 jar sweet Thai chili sauce
* 1/2 jar sweet and sour sauce
* 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
* 1/4 cup pineapple juice (from can)
* 2 tbsp cayenne pepper
* 2 tsp paprika
* 1 tbsp pepper
* 1 tsp garlic powder
* 1 can pineapple tidbits (juice reserved for sauce and shrimp
* 1 bag frozen sliced pepper and onion blend
Preheat oven to 400* F. Place chicken in foil lined baking dish and coat with seasonings. Bake chicken 20 minutes.
While chicken is baking, combine all sauce ingredients and whisk well to remove any lumps from brown sugar.
Take chicken out after 20 minutes and place peppers and onions and pineapple in pan as well. Cook another 15 minutes.
While chicken and veggies are cooing and sauce is blending flavors, run shrimp under water until thawed (I used pre-cooked shrimp to expedite this process). Drain and place in bowl with sauce and reserved pineapple juice, toss to mix.
After 15 minutes, place some sauce in bowl and coat shrimp. Drain pan of excess water and juice from pineapple and frozen veggies. Pour most of sauce on chicken (reserve 2 tbsp) and toss chicken and veggies to coat, cover with shrimp and cook another 10 minutes until heated through.
I made a simple rice and veggie stir fry to go with this and poured 1 tbsp on each piece of chicken after plating. My boyfriend loved this, and the flavors blended very well into and Asian-Hawaiian fusion. This will definitely be on my go to list of recipes in the future.