Chickenetti (or "Be sure to fully read the directions before choosing a recipe")

Wow! Has it really been a month and a half since I cooked? Yes, I mean cooked anything (french toast for breakfast this past weekend doesn't count). I have quickly realized that I am just NOT going to cook dinner after a long day at work unless it's sitting in the crock pot doing it's thing all by itself. I mean, April was a very busy month - traveled out of town every weekend including being gone for an entire week...had a birthday and an anniversary - but since I've been back, despite my best intentions, haven't cooked a thing. Until today. And if this would have been my first crock pot cooking adventure, it very well may have been my last...


So, the recipe sounded simple enough. Not too many ingredients, only three steps listed. What could be so hard about that? PLENTY! First, here's the recipe I tried, from FIX-IT and FORGET-IT LIGHTLY : Healthy, Low-Fat Recipes for Your Slow Cooker (page 33 to be exact):

Ingredients:

1 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth

16-oz pkg, spaghetti, cooked

4-6 cups cubed and cooked chicken, or turkey, breast

10 3/4-oz can fat-free, low-sodium cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup

1 cup water

1/4 cup green bell peppers, chopped

1/2 cup diced celery

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 medium-sized onion, grated

1/2 lb. fat-free white or yellow American cheese, cubed

1. Put chicken broth into very large slow cooker. Add spaghetti and chicken.
2. In large bowl, combine soup and water until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients; then pour into slow cooker.
3. Cover. Cook on low 2-3 hours.

Okay, seriously, at first glance doesn't that sound simple enough? Or, wait...did you actually read all those pesky little adjectives in the ingredient list. ..."COOKED"... "COOKED"... yes, the chicken and pasta needed to be COOKED before adding them to the crock pot! Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the crock pot doing the cooking?? My kitchen looked like an explosion went off - and it took me an HOUR to get everything ready to go IN the crock pot. Needless to say, this defies all my reasoning around why cooking with a crock pot is good. I dirtied up nearly every pot/bowl I own. Okay - enough of my ranting, let me actually break this down for you because it was surely more than 3 little steps.

My ingredients (above). Innocent looking, yes? Admittedly, another recipe I chose for later this week needs chicken too, so the package contains enough for two recipes. 





So...I start by cutting up all those chicken breasts. I remember now why I usually use the frozen chicken tenders rather than full chicken breasts. It seemed to take forever to clean those up and cut them up. The tenders are so much easier to work with. But I did it - cut it all up into cubes and got the chicken ready to go.


I needed to cook it all up - and it took me two batches in my wok. The recipe doesn't say HOW to cook it (boil it? brown it?) so I went with what I know. Which meant I actually used some corn starch to coat the chicken (my mom taught me that so many years ago and I still do it - it's supposed to help the chicken be more tender or something), used a little vegetable oil and then had to flavor the chicken with SOMETHING so I used some garlic salt.

I wasn't too worried about making sure the chicken was completely cooked because I knew it was going in the crock pot. But this dirtied up the wok, spatula and my stove.

Simultaneously I got the spaghetti noodles boiling. Since I had cooked up something separately for myself for lunch, my correctly-sized pot wasn't clean and I used a pot that really was too small. Therefore, messy stove with water spilling out and adding to my frustration (dirty pot and utensil #2). Oh yeah, I didn't cook the noodles all the way - only about half the time. Because it was going to be sitting in the crock pot for a few hours. Glad I did that - even so, I think they were too mushy. Could I have just added some extra water and put the noodles in dry?


So then, chicken and noodles done and put in the crock pot (all that was to get to step #1). Now I had to prep the "rest of the ingredients". The bell pepper ended up being less than 1/2 of a smallish bell pepper. The celery was about 1.5 stalks. And who grates onions? I just chopped it up really fine. I also couldn't find blocks of fat-free American cheese, so went with trusty Singles. It's all going to melt anyway right?

So...it all looks fine - but seriously took me like an hour, dirtied 2 pots, I think 3 bowls, two cutting boards (separate one for the chicken), endless utensils and every surface in my kitchen. This is NOT what crock pot cooking is supposed to be like! 

Oh, you probably want to know how it tastes. 

It tasted good - but like something I could have make in a pot on the stove. You know, boil the pasta, drain it - add all the ingredients back into the same pot and simmer for 30 minutes. It was nice to have a home cooked meal (especially considering that we're under severe thunderstorm warnings here in Houston tonight) but honestly, not worth all the trouble. Better luck tomorrow! :-)