Friday, April 5, 2013

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!


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