Dinner: Jasmine Rice, Wild Cod, and Brussels

Jasmine rice, wild cod, brussels sprouts with sautéed red onion, tofu, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, raw red onion, and raw chopped garlic.

Finished with olive oil, red wine vinegars, fig balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, and sea salt.

Crock Pot Chicken and Lentils

Check out this hearty and healthy bowl filled with all the nourishment your body needs.

• 1.5 handfuls of Crock Pot Chicken chopped up

• 1 ladle of cooked green lentils, mixed with chopped white onion, 1 tbsp of olive oil and 2 pinches of sea salt

  • Cooking Instructions. Add 3 cups of water or vegetable brother to a pot. Add 1 cup of green lentils. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for 45 minutes, covered. Taste for tenderness before removing from heat. Strain the lentils and return them to the pot.

• 1 handful of spicy brussels sprouts

• 1 handful of sautéed crimini mushrooms

  • Cooking Instructions. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Add a tbsp of olive oil. Slice an 8 oz package of mushrooms into quarters (baby bellas or crimini), toss lightly with 2 tbsp of olive oil and 2 pinches of sea salt and add them to the preheated pan. Add a few splashes of water to create steam and cover. Leave undisturbed for 5 minutes, then toss, cover again, and let sit for another 3 - 5 minutes.

Lunch: Chicken, beet, and brussels salad

After discovering how easy and delicious it is to cook with the crock pot (check out this crock pot chicken recipe) we’ve been looking for more ways to use it. This morning Jennifer thought “why not cook the beets in it.”

So that’s what we did. She found this simple recipe. I only had 4 beets so I pared the amounts down a bit. I also think I cut the beets smaller than I was supposed to, so I cooked them on low for a little over 4 hours instead of 6. But they came out sooo good.

They finished cooking right when I got back from the gym, so I tossed them with some dry parsley and then made this bomb salad with them. Check it out.

• 1.5 handfuls of chicken

• 1 handful of roasted brussels

• 1 handful of crock pot beets

• Chopped walnuts and almonds, and a dash of pumpkin seeds

• Finished with olive oil, fig balsamic, red wine vinegar, chopped raw garlic, salt, onion powder

Such a treat!

Slow Cooker Beets

Beets and brussels are two of my favorite vegetables, and of course they’re very different. But the thing they share is their health benefits. Beets are extremely nutritious and have many health benefits, and have been shown to help reduce blood pressure.

I’m a simpleton when it comes to food and so my method of cooking beets has been to boil them. It works fine for me but my girlfriend doesn’t love them. A few weeks ago we had a braised beet salad at one of our favorite restaurants, Undici, that was insanely good. At dinner I told her I wanted to make them that way.

I couldn’t find a good recipe and she suggested instead I use the crock pot. Wow what a game changer that was! I made them again today. Here’s what I did.

I took five beets, cut the stems off and then peeled them and cut them in half (quarters if they’re larger).

I added them to the crock pot and then added 1/2 cup of water, salt, thyme, parsley, chopped garlic and red onion. Closed the lid and let them cook on slow for 4 hours.

🤌🏽 They came out delicious. Give it a try.

Set It and Forget It Crock Pot Chicken

Every now and then I come across something so life changing that I wonder how I never knew about it and I want to share it with everyone I know. Slow cooking a whole chicken in the crock pot is one of those things.

From a cost, effort, and taste perspective, there is no reason not slow cook a chicken with regularity. Have 4 - 5 lbs of high quality protein readily available to add to any dish is just one more reason to follow this recipe. I made my first whole chicken on Christmas, and have made two more since. I’m just loving this.

It was just the two of us for Christmas this year, so a whole Turkey seemed like too much food. We also didn’t have all the necessary equipment to cook a turkey. Plus by the time we committed to cooking, we had run out of time to defrost a turkey (which apparently takes 3 days in the fridge). So we bought a 5 lb chicken instead and cooked it in the crock pot.

The best part? Once the chicken is setup, it’s completely mindless. And clean up is just one tray. The recipe does require a crock pot (which you can buy here for less than $40).

Buy a whole frying chicken. Unwrap it and remove the bag containing the gizzards (if it has one). The first chicken I bought didn’t have one but the second did, and I failed to remove it (yikes!).

In a small bowl mix the following seasonings:

• 1 tsp of salt

• 1 tsp chili powder

• 1 tsp onion powder

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• 1 tsp of herbs de Provence

• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

• 1 tsp thyme

• 1 tsp of cracked black pepper

Cut an onion into quarters and separate the layers and then lay the slices evenly along the bottom of the crock pot. There is no need to add water or anything else to the crock pot.

Mix all the spices and then rub down the chicken. Make sure to get inside the wings, thighs and drumsticks.

Place the chicken in the crock pot. We cooked a 5 lb chicken and set the heat to high and cooked it for 6.5 hours.

Once finished, pull the meat from the bone. The meat should slide off with ease. Throw out the bones and carcass. Add the meat to any dish for a delicious treat of protein!