Crock Pot Challenge Meal #9: Greek Chicken

When I was typing the title of this post I actually wrote "Green Failure" first then I realized what I typed.  That should give you an idea how Meal #9 went.

Today was the first time cooking a full chicken in the crock pot.  I was following a recipe from Tone It Up! Blog, click here to see all of their crock pot recipes.  The one I wanted to try was the Greek Chicken recipe, second on their list.

The failure could be 100% my fault. I missed two words in the ingredient list - "skin removed".  When I put the whole chicken in the crock pot the skin was still on the bird.  Here is how our meal looked when we got home.

Not too appetizing, but I still wanted to give it a shot.  It's a whole bird, that's a lot of meat and money to give up without trying it.  Luckily, the skin came right off the meat and the mead fell right off the bone.  We served with Quinoa and sat down for dinner.  Stephen liked it, even said it was a Keeper, but we disagree.  I thought the meat was far too dry.  Also, there wasn't much of a "Greek" flavor to it at all.  Is it called Greek Chicken because there is Greek yogurt in it?  Well, you don't taste it or much of anything else.

I won't be making this meal again.  Stephen made a good point, I didn't like this chicken because all of the chicken he makes is the best I've ever had.  He's probably right.  We have another whole chicken in the freezer, Stephen is going to cook it his way this weekend and I'm sure it will blow mine away.

I'm traveling tomorrow and I won't be home until after 8pm.  We have a ton of Buffalo Chicken left over so instead of me trying to put something together before I run out the door in the morning to catch a plane, we're just going to go with left overs tomorrow night and we'll pick back up the following day.

Quinoa Seafood Salad

Yes, another post about Quinoa, but I can't help it, it's so good!  I found a recipe on Pinterest that I had to try, the original recipe is called the Superfood Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette.  Superfood it is!  I made a quite a few adjustments to the recipe but click here to see the original- totally worth it.  I want to give credit where credit is due - I never would have made my version of this salad without Iowa Girl Eats.

Superfood Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette from Iowa Girl Eats 

We didn't have all the ingredients to make the dish, but we substituted and it was still amazing.  We cooked the quinoa as directed and I used chicken broth (I was out of chicken stock) for the liquid.  I made double the quinoa needed for this recipe so we have it already ready to go for tonight's meal.  Half a cup uncooked quinoa in this dish is about 4 servings because of all of the other stuff added in.  I had the can of black beans, so we were good to go there.  I also didn't have frozen corn or pomegranate arils or orange.  Yes, the recipe was basically just a guideline for me at this point.  I used canned corn, rinsed and it worked just fine.  In place of the pomegranate arils I used some fresh blueberries that we picked ourselves over the weekend at a blueberry farm.  Nothing beats fresh blueberries.  We didn't have anything to substitute for the orange, but the dish was fabulous without it.  Will try to remember an orange the next time we buy avocado.  Everything else we had on hand.

We did mix in some shrimp to the dish and loved it.  Stephen was in charge of the shrimp and he cooked it in a very little bit of bacon grease and lemon juice, pepper and garlic powder.  Once it was done he removed it from the heat and added a bit of milk to the pan to make a rue.  Then he put the shrimp back into the pan to coat.  We added the shrimp to the quinoa mixture and he squeezed a large lemon over the dish while I mixed everything together.  Because we had that to mix in, we didn't make the lemon vinaigrette in the recipe.  I liked the dish without olive oil.

Overall, the salad was amazing.  Where most of my meals with quinoa have had quinoa as the main ingredient, this dish was an mix of so many flavors.  The quinoa coated most of the other ingredients, but was definitely just a supporting cast member.  I absolutely can't wait to get home to have the leftovers.

Here are the ingredients that I had in my Quinoa Seafood Salad:
1/2 cup dry quinoa
1/3 cup red onion, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can corn, rinsed
couple handfulls of fresh blueberries
1 lemon squeezed, more to taste if necessary

For the shrimp:
1/2 lb shrimp
one lemon
small amount of bacon grease, enough to coat the bottom of the pan only
splash of milk
pepper
garlic powder

Cook the quinoa as you normally would, let it cool while you cook the shrimp.  Once the quinoa is cool, mix in all the ingredients then add the shrimp.  Mix in juice of half the lemon.  Stir to coat.  Mix in the juice of the second half of the lemon.  Serve room temp or cold.

Quinoa

Just a few weeks ago I introduced Chia Seeds to our diet and over the weekend I cooked Quinoa for the first time.  It will absolutely be a staple in our diet moving forward.  I found Quinoa on a few cooking blogs that I read regularly and I was always scared to try it, and let's be honest, I didn't even know where to find it in the grocery store, a huge deciding factor to ingredients I use in my cooking.  So I had always avoided it.  When I saw this recipe on the blog How Sweet It Is, I had to try it.  I love everything that goes into the dish, it was my chance to suck it up and try Quinoa for the first time.  (BTW, it's pronounced KEEN-WA, I have a hard time remembering that.)

A BRIEF history - Quinoa has been used by civilizations for thousands of years, it was a super food to the Incas and before them and it still is today.  Like Chia Seeds, Quinoa has so many health benefits that I'm sad I haven't been eating it for years and years.  Quinoa is super high in protein and also has the nine essential amino acids.  Also important for me is that it contains riboflavin which has been shown to reduce the frequency of migraines which I seem to be getting these days.  It's also non-fattening with a low number of calories per serving while supplying your body with protein, complex carbohydrates, fiber and healthy fats.  And for those who are on a gluten free diet, it's also gluten free.  I've seen a lot of people on gluten free blogs and recipe sites use Quinoa or Quinoa flour to replace traditional flour in recipes.

You're supposed to rinse Quinoa before you cook it to remove the bitter taste, that was the hardest part of the entire dish.  I wasn't prepared for how sticky it would be once wet and I had it all over the place, I thought it would be more like a seed - oops.  People recommend placing it in a strainer and running cold water over it.  I'll try that next time (tonight).

The watermelon, basil and feta Quinoa dish was amazing.  We covered it in lime juice and it was delicious.  The recipe feeds 2 to 4, we devoured it in one night.  Tonight I'll be making the recipe again and making a few variations.  I plan on eating some Quinoa a few times this week for lunch or dinner.  We'll cook as the recipe directs us to, we'll add some cooked bacon crumbles to some and I want to try a salad with the Quinoa, sautéed spinach and feta cheese, maybe with some cherry tomatoes, too.  This could be a great addition to the lunch salads that we try to prepare for a week.

Also, on a side note, Chia Seeds are amazing.  We've started incorporating them in everything possible when we cook.  Making a smoothie, adding Chia Seeds.  Cooking fish, adding Chia Seeds.  Anytime we have Greek Yogurt, it also has Chia Seeds.  The small, $15 bag that I bought at Whole Foods a few weeks ago is still hanging in there (a serving is one or two tablespoons) but I just purchased a three pound bag on Amazon that we should have on Thursday.  We love the little seeds and we're committed to using them.