One hundred weeks since this all started. Week 1 was March 2016 — a senior in high school counting down on a whiteboard, eating Mom's chicken casserole, wondering what came next. Now it's February 2018 and I'm twenty years old and getting married in three weeks and I know what came next. Everything. Everything came next.
The packing is done. My room in Norfolk is half-empty — the things I'm taking to Lejeune are in boxes in the garage, and the things I'm leaving behind are on the shelves like ghosts. The cheer trophy. The prom photo. The AP English paper with 'beautifully observed' written in the margin. The ODU acceptance letter on the fridge — Mom hasn't taken it down, and I haven't asked her to.
I've been cooking from the recipe cards every other night now. This week: Mom's crockpot chicken. The simplest recipe in the binder — chicken breasts, cream of chicken soup, ranch seasoning packet, in the slow cooker for six hours. It's not gourmet. It's barely cooking. But it produces tender, flavorful chicken that you can shred and put on anything — rice, pasta, tacos, sandwiches — and it costs about $5 for a meal that feeds four.
This is the recipe Mom made more than any other during deployments. It requires no skill, no attention, no emotional bandwidth. You put things in a pot, you turn it on, and six hours later, dinner exists. For a woman alone with two children and a husband in a war zone, this is the recipe that says: you can get through today. Just put the chicken in the pot.
I'm going to make this recipe at Lejeune. I'm going to make it when Ryan deploys. I'm going to make it when I'm alone and scared and the base housing kitchen is too quiet. I'm going to put the chicken in the pot and I'm going to get through the day.
Mom came into my half-packed room tonight and sat on the bed. She didn't say anything for a while. Then: 'I left home at twenty-three. My mother cried for a week. I promised I wouldn't cry.'
'Are you going to cry?'
'Probably. Don't tell anyone.'
'I won't.'
'The crockpot chicken was good tonight.'
'It wasn't as good as yours.'
'It never will be. Make it anyway.'
Make it anyway. The instruction that sits underneath every recipe card. It won't be perfect. It won't be Mom's. Make it anyway. Because the making is the point. The standing in the kitchen, the putting dinner on the table, the insistence that life continues regardless of what's happening outside — THAT is the recipe. That's what she's passing down.
Three weeks. The boxes are in the garage. The chicken is in the pot.
Make it anyway.
Mom’s crockpot chicken taught me that the simplest meals carry the most weight — that putting something in the pot and letting it work is its own kind of courage. This slow cooker orange chicken is cut from that same cloth: almost no hands-on time, impossibly tender results, and the kind of sweet-savory flavor that makes a quiet kitchen feel like home. It’s the recipe I’ll be making at Lejeune when I need to remember that dinner on the table means the day still counts.
Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 4–6 hours | Total Time: 4 hours 10 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 3/4 cup orange marmalade
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons cold water
- Cooked rice, for serving
- Sesame seeds and sliced green onions, for garnish
Instructions
- Prepare the sauce. In a medium bowl, whisk together the orange marmalade, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, minced garlic, grated ginger, and red pepper flakes until smooth.
- Add chicken to the slow cooker. Place the chicken breasts in the bottom of a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. Pour the sauce evenly over the chicken.
- Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 5–6 hours or HIGH for 3–4 hours, until the chicken is tender and cooked through (internal temperature of 165°F).
- Shred the chicken. Remove the chicken from the slow cooker and shred with two forks. Set aside.
- Thicken the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and cold water. Stir the slurry into the sauce in the slow cooker. Return the shredded chicken to the pot and toss to coat. Cover and cook on HIGH for an additional 15–20 minutes until the sauce thickens.
- Serve. Spoon the orange chicken over cooked rice and garnish with sesame seeds and sliced green onions.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 380 | Protein: 42g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 780mg
About the cook who shared this
Rachel Abernathy
Week 100 of Rachel’s 30-year story
· San Diego, California
Rachel is a twenty-eight-year-old Marine wife and mom of two who has moved five times in six years and learned to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with half her cookware still in boxes. She married young, survived postpartum depression, and feeds her family of four on a junior Marine's salary with a freezer full of pre-made meals and a crockpot that has never let her down. She writes for the military spouses who are cooking dinner alone in base housing and wondering if they're enough. You are.
