Mediterranean chicken quinoa skillet

I'm not sure what a person's measure of success should be on a blog, this is new territory for me. All I know, is if I look back at my initial posts in early 2011 and compare them to my posts now, I notice a few things.

 

1. My photography (although nowhere near the level I want it to be still) has drastically improved from my original Droid phone pics I used to use. Sidenote: I GOT MY CAMERA LENS BACK!!! Oh, how I've missed it. Getting it back has made me really try to get more into the photography of all this, and try to stage better photos than I have in the past. We'll see how I do...I'll work on it, I promise!!

 

2. I'm more comfortable in my writing and in sharing a lot more of myself (and my main man) in my posts.

 

 3. You can't see this, but I can see how many pageviews I get per day on each post. I am well over a million views at this point, and it blows my mind every time I think about it. I'm averaging 10k views per day. Seriously? This started as a little creative writing project for family and friends so I would stop annoying everyone with pics of our dinner on facebook each night....and it's come to this!? I'm amazed...but really, doesn't everyone have a complete and total infatuation with food and aren't they always looking for the new, blast your socks off, love of your life recipe around each and every corner of the interwebs like I am? Oh, wait...that's just me? Well, at least I hope if any of you have tried any of the recipes I've posted, that you've enjoyed them as much as I have.

 

 4. This project not only allows me a creative outlet, but it's also widened our horizens to a lot of different meals we never would have attempted before (case in point: I am now obsessed with quinoa and will be posting another recipe with it very soon, plus I just KILLED searing scallops at home for the first time this weekend)!

 

 My favorite time of the day is still and probably always will be, dinnertime. When Main Man comes in and makes a comment about how he can smell dinner from the driveway (sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad), takes off his shoes, and we talk about each of our days while I dish up the dinner du jour. He's very honest with me if he likes or dislikes whatever I make, which some would take offense to, but I truly appreciate. That's why I love a recipe like this...that I'm not sure of myself, let alone wondering if he's going to like it....and it turns out wonderous! I mean, this is one of the better meals I've enjoyed in a while, and it's uber healthy! I've only cooked with quinoa once on Valentines Day this year, when I made the toasted quinoa salad with scallops. It was good...but it wasn't good like this!

 

The original recipe was from Iowa Girl Eats and called for pasta, and shrimp, and she made a sauce. So I don't think this is even slightly near the same meal, but it worked and that's all that matters in the food world, right? Main man plowed this...and I mean plowed it. I'm not going to speak of the fact that I annhilated the same amount as he did...I'm a lady, you know. All I'm saying is, if you've never worked with quinoa, this is a great recipe to start out with. The texture is a little something to get over, and I feel like sort of a hippie subbing quinoa for pasta, but both those facts are easy to get over when you taste the juice of the cooked tomatoes, with the pop of the quinoa, and the saltiness of the feta in your mouth all at once. Mouthgasm. I said it. I'm no longer a lady...get over it.

Ingredients:
2 cups dry quinoa (supa, supa, supafood)
4 cups chicken broth
3 grilled chicken (seasoned with Tastefully Simple seasoning salt)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
6 garlic cloves, minced (it called for less but I'm a garlic freak...gotta keep those vamps away, I've already got me an Edward!)
4 cups chopped fresh spinach (another superfood! this meal is soooo healthy!)
2 cups cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup feta cheese crumbles (I used reduced fat)
1/4 cup torn fresh basil

Directions:
Add 4 cups chicken broth to a large skillet and bring to a boil. Add 2 cups rinsed (make sure to rinse!) quinoa to the skillet and let cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Add spinach, tomatoes, garlic, feta, basil, and cooked chicken to the skillet. Continually stir while flavors melt together. Flavor with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste. Serve piping hot! But, if you happen to get accosted with a forkful in your mouth of it cold from the fridge by your own hand before you know what it's doing....it's good cold too...just an FYI.