Salsa Chicken: File this under easy-peasy. Chicken thighs and chicken breasts. Jar of salsa (our go-to is Newman’s Own Pineapple salsa, medium). On high for a few hours, 4-ish. This was what I made when I was supposed to be juice-fasting. For family members not fasting there was guacamole, shredded cheese wrapped in a tortilla.

Chicken with Lemon and Mushrooms: Last week, I did enjoy this. Whole chicken, lemon and spices shoved into the cavity. Mushrooms covering above. 4.5 hours on high. Instead of steaming I roasted some cauliflower and broccoli. We steam our veggies 95% of the time. Sometimes you gotta change it up. I love the making the whole chicken because we have leftovers for days.

Chicken isn’t always a favorite but it usually takes less time to cook, and it could be considered “lighter” fare compared to the heavier, beefier dishes I’ve done in the past. I make extra for leftovers but sometimes certain family members overindulge then pay for it. Happens less with poultry. But, some non-chicken posts coming up.

Both of these, with more detail and ingredients, courtesy of Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook.

Even though I’m no longer on Paleo, I have ingrained myself to think grain-free (see what I did there?). My family (meaning siblings and parents) mostly wonder how you can sustain such a life. well, my brother has been on South Beach, so he gets it. but, i do think my felow clan members are all carb addicts and i still marvel how things have changed since I was a kid, living in a household where white rice was served at every evening meal.

We don’t even keep white rice in the house these days, as I’ve probably mentioned before. The kiddo vacuums the stuff up when given the chance. Pretty soon i will really need to make a real effort to manage her carb intake so as to not repeat the mistakes of predecessors. For now I create substitutions likes using spaghetti squash instead of spaghetti. Or making cauliflower rice instead of rice. Fine for some meals. But, sometimes if a meal calls for rice, nothing else will do.

And so was the case with this meal. I created a sweet and sour marinade that included soy sauce, tamari, brown sugar green onions and various other spices and poured it over a whole fryer. Slow cooker and 4ish hours later this sucker was falling off the bone. Would have been great over a small bed of white rice. Would have been good over brown rice. But instead I cuisinarted cauliflower, pan-fried it with some five-spice and while it was okay, it wasn’t the same. Husband didn’t complain, though. And he will tell me if he doesn’t like it. Kiddo wasn’t impressed. It’s that carb-addict gene she got from me.

sweet and sour chicken with cauliflower rice

The chicken finished cooking before I was ready. Slow-cooker timing can be tricky when you can’t count properly.

Slow cooker Recipe from NYMSCC.
Cauliflower rice recipe from NomNomPaleo. Don’t get me wrong. I like it, just not this day.