Lemony Chicken Quinoa Dinnery Thing Part 2

OK Dinner is done and eaten! Here is how I would make it if I made it over again (and it was pretty darn tasty so I probably will!):

Same ingredients EXCEPT add 2 cups more of water as that Quinoa sure does soak it up!! Also there is virtually NO salt going on in here. I added Lawry's Seasoned Salt to taste. I think I used about a teaspoon of it or so. Not sure though...just put a bit in and test, then repeat :)

A note about the lemon: The lemon in our opinion tasted GREAT. IF YOU LIKE LEMON!!! It adds a nice tangy aftertaste. You will have to pull out the rinds though as the inside part dissolves and the rinds break apart. No biggie but if you serve it to kids you may want to sift through or find a better way (just put in the inside part maybe?).

I also think that cooking it for less time perhaps would result in more of a soup than a stew. Its very thick if you cook it for 7 hours even on Low. 5 hours would probably do.

I am thinking this would make a GREAT weight loss dinner. Quinoa is the only thing that has real calories in it (ok ok so does the chicken) and it has 162 cal per 1/4 cup dry. I used 1 cup dry in this stew. When you cook it the outer part which is indigestible separates from the inner part and forms a little curly "s". Its extremely filling so you wouldn't need much, and it has a LOAD of good stuff in it:

From Wikipedia

Its protein content is very high (12%–18%), making it a healthy choice for vegetarians and vegans. Unlike wheat or rice (which are low inlysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source.^[4] It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten-free and considered easy to digest.

Caution: I do not know for sure yet, but because of the amount of fiber in this, 7g per half cup, it may cause GAS!!! LOL!!! I didn't think of that till I ate a whole bowl oh boy!! Its gonna be a fun evening!!!

Teriyaki-ish Chicken in the Slow Cooker

Since my kids said they are sick of beef and carrots I decided to try cooking chicken in the slow cooker. My friend Maggie gave me the basis for the recipe: put frozen chicken breasts in what I fondly now call the Crack Pot and dump a can of Swanson's chicken broth on them. Well I couldn't stop at that. I got the bright idea to put the only recipe for any kind of tasty thing in there: teriyaki sauce. Its the only thing my mother taught me to make and HEY I remember it 15 years later!! See Mom?? I WAS listening! You could have taught me more!! Ok enough angst.

So here is what my recipe ended up being for today's "Cooking for Chumps" lesson:

4 FROZEN chicken breasts
1/2 cup of brown sugar, give or take 1/4 cup
a bunch of olive oil (probably about 1/3 cup)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 chopped thingies of garlic (the small thingies that make up the big thingy)
can of Swanson's Chicken Broth
1/2 tsp Ginger I didn't have Ginger, so I used the closest thing I could find: Szechwan Spice.
1 lemon, sliced into circles not wedges. Probably doesn't matter but it looks nice :)



First, you are going to want to take the chicken out of the foam package its in, but you will most likely find the damn things are frozen tight to it. I asked Maggie what to do and she said to give it a warm bath. So I held it under warm water and then pried it off the foam. Then I had to break them apart since they were also stuck to each other! You may want to wear safety goggles for this hahaha


Dump them into the broth inside the cooker. Next add all the other ingredients except the lemon. Well, honestly I don't know if it matters when you add the lemon, but I waited until 2 hours before it was done and it was quite tasty. Hell, throw caution to the wind if ya want!

Turn it on High and cook for about 4 hours. I started it around 12:30pm. If you start early in the morning I would assume you would put it on Low!



As I said I put the lemon slices in around 3ish. That is because my lemon juice expired in 2007 and I had to walk to the grocery store and buy a lemon!! You can tell I don't cook often can you?

I also baked a batch of brownies for posterity, and boiled 2 bags of 10 min white rice to put under the chicken. I still have a sinus issue right now so I can't smell anything, but everyone seemed to think it smelled delicious.



We sat down to eat and everyone gave it a thumbs up! The chicken was smooth like buttah and pulled apart easily with a fork. The sauce in the bottom of the pot was good enough that my husband made more rice just so he could use it on something! He often eats 2 dinners so I wasn't too shocked. Somehow the man is 6'3" and 140 lbs and eats like a hogger. I learned long ago that such a metabolism does not run off on me just because I married him.

Simple Pot Roast

I grabbed a hunk of beef (about 2 lbs i think) that said "Great for Pot Roasts" on it, and was on "Manager's Special" which I don't even want to know what that means, which cost me about $6.

I then peeled 7 small Yukon Gold potatoes and dumped in a bag of baby carrots. I also cleaned 3 white button mushrooms (clean by wiping gently with a damp paper towel as holding them under running water kills the flavor) and chopped them up and threw them in.

The "juice" is Campbell's Onion Soup with Beef Stock and half a can of water.

I turned the Crack Pot on High from 8:30am to 2:30pm and then put it to Low from 2:30 to 5:00pm.

The meat was like buttah.

Even my picky 5 year old daughter liked it.

The mushrooms turned black but my son insists they were delicious and ate them all...he's a sweet boy.