Crockpot greek chicken

I always hate to do this to you...you know, end the week on a bad note with a SNAFU.  But it can't be helped, and at least this one comes with some good looking photos. I was so happy with the presentation of this dish! I would've whipped out my camera in a restaurant had this been served to me...it looked amazing. Too bad it didn't taste as such. I really thought the premise of the recipe was good, so maybe I just need to do some tweaking. All the flavors went well together, but I couldn't put my finger on what this was missing. It sure was missing something horribly though...bad enough that I made another dinner. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, I report it to you. I had a Facebook friend recently post about his issues with trying recipes from blogs...sometimes they work and sometimes they don't but it's a total letdown when you're pumped to the max about dinner and then it falls flat. I get that people have different tastes, but by this time in our lives we usually know our own tastes. Greek flavor profiles...count me in. Except for this one. Plus, it's cooked in a crockpot. Imagine my excitement!

 

1 cup quinoa (I used red which may have been the problem, this was the first time we've tried that and the first time I haven't liked a quinoa dish)

1 small whole chicken (I used only breasts, I can't imagine that being a problem though)

1 red onion, diced

2 cups vegetable broth (I used chicken broth, but routinely swap the two out so it shouldn't have made a difference)

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

juice of 1 lemon

1 T oregano

1 T basil

1 T greek seasoning (I added this)

 

Place the chicken into the crockpot with a liner in it. Mix all other ingredients besides the quinoa together and pour over the chicken. Cook for 6 hours (I cooked for 3 hours because I chop all crockpot recipe cooking times in half, they ALWAYS burn if you go the full time, the chicken was fully done after 3 hours). Right before serving, cook quinoa on the stovetop according to directions.

 

As usual, you add equal parts liquid to the quinoa so one cup of quinoa equals one cup of liquid. You can use water but I always use chicken broth because I feel like it gives more flavor. It may not, but I do it anyway. When the liquid is absorbed the quinoa is done, simple as that.

 

Put the quinoa down on a plate and pile it with the shredded chicken with sauce. I even topped the plate with diced cucumber for some crunch, and some crumbled feta just because I love it. No can do, Kemosabe! I wouldn't say this was horrible...I mean, Main Man ate a good part of his. I just wasn't feeling it.

 

And when you're that excited to put something this pretty in your mouth...it betta taste good! Any suggestions on what could've gone wrong? The only thing I can think is I should sub normal quinoa to see if that was the problem...but to me, it was a lack of good flavor more than a different flavor from the quinoa. Either way, I chalked this one up to the SNAFU section and made myself a salad that night. At least I don't have the problem of drooling over my post while typing it up today like I have had this week...

Happy Friday, all!

Tuna stuffed shells

This is the story, all about how, my life got flipped turned upside down, by a tuna casserole that I thought would be the jam, and it ended up going in the dog bowl, to Sam.

That doesn't work as well for me as it does for the Fresh Prince. Par for the course.

 

You win some, you lose some. And sometimes you lose some that you were so very excited for, and actually took a decent amount of time to put together, and the disappointment kicks you in the side-gut, and you just have to live with it. That's where we're at with this recipe. I've always thought there should be cooking shows that do bad recipes, just so you can spot them in the wild when you happen upon them...maybe I'll fill that niche with my SNAFU section someday. This one warrants a top place in the SNAFU section, right up by the meatball casserole debacle...I'll type the recipe and then tell you what things I did differently, that way we can try to see where I went wrong!

 

 1 head garlic

4 T olive oil

1 small white onion, diced

1/4 cup flour (I used whole wheat organic)

4 cups milk (I used skim)

1 whole wheat English muffin, torn into chunks (I used a half a wheat hoagie roll from the chicken phillies)

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1 pinch crushed red pepper (I have large pinchers so I use a lot of the red pepps!)

1 (10 oz) package frozen spinach, drained (I used 3 cups fresh spinach)

3 (5 oz) cans tuna, drained (I always use albacore in water, not oily and quality white colored tuna)

about 20 jumbo pasta shells, cooked (I used uncooked)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved (I added this ingredient)

 

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Slice the top off the garlic head, and place it in a a small piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle 1 T of olive oil over it. Wrap it up and roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Once roasted, set aside to cool.

 

Lower the oven heat to 425 degrees. In a food processor, add the torn English muffin, Parmesan, crushed red pepper, and salt and pepper. Blitz that baby till you get some nice breadcrumbs. Check out my new food processor...she's sexy, no?!

 

Transfer half this mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add spinach, tuna, and tomatoes. The colors! So perdy...

 

Bring the remaining 3 T olive oil to a medium high heat in a large skillet. Add the onions and saute until they start to soften, 6-8 minutes. Add the flour and whisk it. Whisk it good. Whisk it real good. Slowly add milk one cup at a time, whisking constantly until it's smooth...should take about 5 minutes total.

Smash the shizz outta that garlic you have cooling (squeeze it out of the skins first). Just lay it on the counter and use the side of a knife. I was surprised at how easy it smushed. It was soooo aromatic too, I had such hopes for the flava this was meant to bring into my life. Which made this even more disappointing...don't worry, I will be roasting and smashing garlic for other recipes soon. The process was fun, easy, and I still can't get over the loverly smell...

Toss the gahhhhh-lic into the sauce mixture with another pinch of salt and peppa. Add half the sauce to the tuna mixture and keep half for the topping of the noods. Look how thick and creamy...

Fill the noods with the stuffing and be amazed at the gorgeousness. "Oh, how pretty the shells are...these are going to be SO GOOD!"  That's what was going through my head at this point in time...oh, how wrong you were, Abby Lynn.

 

Cover the noods with the remaining sauce, and then the remaining breadcrumbs, and then a little sprinkle of cheese if you so choose. It won't make a difference. Even cheese can't help this dish. Bake for 45 minutes until bubbly and brown. Then feed it to your dog.

 

I didn't even take a picture for you. It was that bad. It looked good. It smelled delish. But it didn't deliver. Such is life. Main Man actually ate this for 2 meals. He didnt' love it, but he said it was filling. And as you read in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air rap above...Sam the man go the rest of the meal I had such high hopes for. Until next time, Pinterest...

I do have an amaaaaazing recipe to share tomorrow that was born the same day this was made, so there is a silver lining. I know you're on the edge of your seat...here's to awesome Friday recipes!!

Spicy chicken lettuce wraps

I've been toying with the idea of lettuce wraps for quite some time now. Never got around to it, because lets face it, I like lettuce in my wraps but really like it wrapped inside a tortilla. But I've had a couple friends mention how much they love them, and I've seen them on menus at restaurants, so I figured I better at least give it a go. So here's my go:

 

I made the crockpot buffalo chicken sandwiches except I omitted the butter, the ranch packet, and the cheese. Just throw 4-6 chicken boobs (yes, I'm a 12 year old) in to the crockpot with a sliced white onion and some buffalo sauce for about 3 hours on high.

 

I used Buffalo Wild Wings brand Spicy Garlic sauce this time. Since the day I found out they bottled and sold their sauces from their restaurants, we haven't eaten there. I love their sauce but don't like to eat fried wings, so I bake mine and use their sauce. Or I soak a chicken book in it and grill it for chicken sammies. Either way, you get the B-Dubb's taste without the B-Dubb's calorie attack...and that, my friends, is a good thing (can I even say that or is Martha Stewart going to be waiting in my closet tonight?).

In the last half hour of cooking, I added 3 celery stalks that were diced up to the crockpot. I like a little crunchity crunch in my wraps. You can add them at the beginning or omit them completely...do whatchu want. And here are the important people in your life right now...and by people, I mean ingredients. That was weird.

Take yoself a large piece of lettuce torn off the iceburg head (I used two to get all wrapped up) and fill it with your chicken mixture, a little cheese, and some light ranch. Roll that shizz up and shove it in your mouth.

I mean it. You have to shove it in there. The things fall apart so easy with hot insides and cold outsides, it was leaking everywheeeeeeere! All I wanted was to get all the yumminess in my mouthhole without losing any of it. This crockpot buffalo chicken is made again and again in our house due to its tastiness...I wasn't about to lose half of mine because my lettuce wasn't performing its duties correctly.

So I did what any rational person would do. Gave a good old Donald Trump "You're fired" hand gesture to the lettuce and wrapped the whole shebang up lovingly in a tortilla blanket so I could ingest it all. All of it. Every piece and dripping of sauce. And that is why I shall never do lettuce wraps again. The end.

Exept you should make this chicken...really, you'll thank me. Now it's the end.

Meatball casserole

I feel kinda bad ending a week on a "don't try this" recipe, but I gotta post it sometime. It's for the greater good, ya know!? Pinterest is a finicky bizzo, and although sometimes the ideas leave me screaming from the rooftops about their success, other times Main Man says I'm grounded from it for a while to think about what I just did. This was one of the latter times...

 

This recipe, my friends, is being tagged to the SNAFUS files.

 

Let's talk about my other recent Pinterest fail, which was sparkler pictures at our wedding. I now have a two inch scar on my arm that I'm pretty sure will be a permanent reminder of our wedding day (how sentimental...) and a hole in the back of my dress that looks like someone put a large cigarette out on my back. No biggie. We got a good shot or two, so it was worth it. Not like I'm going to wear the dress again, out on the town for our anniversary or anything. But I wouldn't recommend it, if you were in fact contemplating walking through a tunnel of 20 inch fire starters on your wedding night. Be informed about these decisions, folks.

 

This Pinterest fail was far less painful, and didn't leave me with any lasting scars. Do you remember when I made the skinny meatball subs? They were soooooo good! Like bite your tongue so no naughty words of exclamation slip out after your first bite, good. See how I'm redeeming myself with today's crap post by giving you a phenomenal recipe to try instead?! I care about you...

 

So I thought those meatballs would be perrrrrrfect in a meatball casserole that I saw on the aforementioned site, and I just so happened to have leftover meatballs frozen from my original batch. Well, here's how it went...

 

The recipe called for crescent roll on the bottom, but I thought cheesy garlic bread would slam this into another dimension. That may have been my downfall. This was the base of the casserole.

 

Then, you add your meatballs, and cover them with sauce. Instead of going with just a red sauce, I thought a two timing casserole with alfredo and marinara would be kicking. Another fork in the road that could've caused the pile up.

Italian seasoning and then top with fresh mozzarella...because we all know you can't go wrong there. And that's a true statement. The cheese was the best part of this arrangement.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until it's all warm and bubbly and yummy looking. It will fool you, I promise. It looks like a melted pile of warm fuzzy there, but it did not in fact produce a true warm fuzzy. I mean...I'm not sure what happened. The meatballs were good, the cheese was good. Something about the sauces being mixed together was off, although I'm not sure why, because I've made two timing pasta before with dual sauce parties. The garlic bread base though? That was a kick to the mouth. And not in a good way. In a "yeah, you suck" way. It was so soggy, it was like eating wet bread. Main Man actually looked at me after eating half of his plate (he was hungry) and said "Don't make this again, ok?".  I absolutely love that he's not scurrrrred to let me know when my skills are lacking and make sure he's never faced with the same plate of squish again.

 

Anywho...here's where it gets weird. We each ate a little that night, enough to kill the appetite and be done with it. But I was going to throw the rest away, and just couldn't bring myself to toss my hard earned, and tasty balled up meat spheres. Soooooo I plucked them out of the casserole and threw them into spagetti the following night. And there was where they found their true home...it was like the ending of Homeward Bound...they made it back to their roots! And we all lived happily ever after with not so much as a thought of ever making a casserole with meatballs again. The end.

 

Happy Friday, all!

Skinny taters

They don't look all that great in this photo...and they weren't all that great in real life, to be honest. I made the mistake of calling these skinny cheesy potatoes before serving them and they were anything but cheesy...which is disappointing to my buds of taste that trust me so much. I really had high hopes for this...like, really high. I love potatoes, we've discussed this before and you can witness it first hand by checking out the baked garlic parsley fries, the crack potatoes, the twice baked potato casserole, the crockpot ranch potatoes, the bacon ranch potato salad, and the bacon ranch grilled taters. Try to digest all of those recipes through the pictures and tell me your mouth isn't watering your garden right now....

So I really thought I had hit the jackpot with a lightened up version of cheesy potatoes...like I had hopes high enough to match my feelings about the twice baked cauliflower, which I was literally obsessed with...there was talk of needing therapy I was so enthralled with the cauliflower for potatoes substitution! You can imagine my disappointment when these smelled SO great cooking on the grill, looked SO great while I was making them, and then tasted like nothing when they got to my plate. What happened??  Don't ask me...I'll give you the recipe in case you want to give it a go and find out what I did wrong...but I also felt the need to give you actually good tater recipes above to check out so you don't have to go into a depression after this flopasaurus like I did.

1 bag frozen hashbrowns

1/2 can low sodium chicken broth

1/2 cup milk

2 cups plain greek yogurt

1 t garlic powder

1 t onion powder

1 t black pepper

1 t italian seasoning

1 t salt

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Combine all ingredients and layer into a greased 9x13 baking  pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (or throw on your grill covered in foil). Cook for 35-45 minutes or until bubbly....and then try not to be disappointed. I'm not sure what would help these, it's not like they were bad, they were just bland. Maybe double the spices? Maybe add a ranch packet in there? Maybe I shouldn't have tried it on the grill? Maybe more cheese?  That sort of defeats the purpose of "skinny" taters but what purpose do bland taters have in this world we live in?  If anyone can help a girl out, I'm open to suggestions....I do know that The Spotted Lamb seemed to really love the recipe, so we either have very different tastes or I did something very wrong...either way, may the force be with you and your taters if you give this a shot!

Pepperoni chips

Ever seen something and thought what a great idea it is, get mad at yourself for not thinking of it in all it's simplicity, and then have it flop so horribly that it's not even fit for humans and gets turned into dog treats? I have. 

Food.com had this recipe for low carb pepperoni chips that I was pretty sure was going to be the next best thing since the low carb twice baked cauliflower. Pepperonis on a paper towel, thrown in the microwave to get crispy for 30-60 seconds, and eaten as a better alternative to potato chips. I even used turkey pepperoni so they were low fat as well!

Followed the directions. They were chewy pepperoni disks that are not really enjoyable in the slightest if you ask me, but if you ask Sam (our dog), he would disagree with you. He loves the things! Good thing I made the whole bag of pepperoni, we're still working our way through the big baggie it made.

I promise you some actual recipes that work this week since posting this flop and my kale chips flop last week doesn't really give you much to work with if you're looking for something good. 

Kale chips

I used to think that some people just knew how to cook and some didn't. I didn't realize how much of a trial and error process it is until well before I even started this blog. And I find it hilarious that people sometimes think I'm some sort of expert chef because I write recipes up to share with people on the internet. I've been asked all sorts of random questions that I just go to the almight Google for, I'm really no Rachel Ray.  I've had my share of jack-ups, these kale chips being one of those that I can't, for the life of me, master!

Mallory made a batch and brought them over one evening we were hanging at the pool, and they were phenom! Main Man even tore through the rest of the bag when he got home, and that's not really something I expected as he's always making fun of me for "weird" substitutions like this...."That green stuff is never going to taste like potato chips, Abby....never."  Look who saddled up on the skinny train and mowed through a bag of green chips, bud!

But I digress...as I said, Mallory made these and I wanted to duplicate them...badly. I tried 3 times. I failed 3 times. And I'm done trying. My parents didn't raise a quitter, but they didn't raise a dummy either. Repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity...and I'm on the brink of it. Maybe it's my oven? Maybe the kind of olive oil? Whatever it is, I'm not doing something right and this is the simplest recipe in the universe. So if anyone has any tips for me...please, for the love of food, help a blogger out!

I started with a head of kale, washed and chopped into "chip" sized pieces in a bowl. I drizzled a little olive oil in there, and covered the leaves with garlic powder (although the chips didn't work, the flavor was amazeballs).

Lay them out on a greased pan and bake at 275 degrees until they crisp up, about 20 minutes. Seems simple, right?

Exhibit 1: burnt kale chips. Although these resemble what I would expect to see when the recipe is called "crispy kale chips". They would disintegrate into ashes in your mouth when they touched your tongue. Lovely. This is what happens when you weed the garden while waiting for something to cook...lesson learned.

I didn't take pics of the next 2 attempts. They didn't burn, thankfully. But they wouldn't get crispy. The second batch I baked for an hour! I kept flipping, kept flipping, kept flipping....soggy. Probably too much olive oil? Third batch had the same problem with less olive oil so I'm not sure what the dealio was with that.

I guess I'm destined to pay Mallory to make kale chips for me for the rest of my life, unless someone (anyone?!) can give me some tips on what I did wrong.....help me, people! Please and thank you :)