I Can Cook Too (sort of)

We've turned over a new leaf. Or are trying to. Even though I'm barely ever home before 10pm on weeknights, I want to be better about cooking. Honestly, there's not a ton of time in my life for it right now. But I do enjoy it. And want to get better at it. For the future. The Alleged Future. When I have Time. (I secretly do wonder if that does actually exist. But I try to hope nonetheless.)

So lets be honest. Anything I cook for dinner basically has to A) happen inside of 20 minutes, B) not involve cooking meat on the stovetop (since our apartment stove has no exhaust hood and I therefore live in fear that the NYFD could show up at any given moment should I attempt to grill a little chicken) or C) take place inside a crockpot. I do dream of ultimately being fancy like Stephen or Alison, but until I have Time and a complete set of kitchen tools, I'll be hauling out the slow cooker. And therefore yes, this will basically be the second blog post in a row that involves or at least mentions a crockpot.

With Geoff being an Asian food fan, I decided to branch out and try some Spicy Peanut Chicken. I sauteed some onions, carrots & celery in a frying pan. Then I diced up some ginger, black peppercorns and garlic.


I felt a little fancy adding it to the veggies. Cause it just looked cool. And it involved ginger. So it made me seem interesting and exotic. Even though, in reality I was frantically trying to get this done before heading out the door to teach a class, and was still in my bathrobe & glasses with Crazy Hair and was very likely talking to myself. But yes, absolutely....using fresh ginger made me exotic and fabulous.


I sliced some chicken and put it in the crockpot, topped it with the veggie mixture and let the Magic Pot do all the work. (5.5 hours on low or 2 hours on high)


After I got back from class (in which I had a teenage hopeful tell me that I was the first casting director she'd ever met who seemed like a real person. Instead of some mean old troll out to ruin her life, I guess.) I had one more step. I mixed all natural (no salt added) peanut butter with lemon juice, soy sauce & Thai red curry paste in a bowl, chopped up 2 red peppers and threw all of that plus some sweat peas and a cup of coconut milk into the crockpot and let it cook for another 20 minutes on high.


And then, we were done.... We had it over rice and topped with fresh cilantro and roasted peanuts.


It was good! And I was proud of myself for branching out from my usual "chili" options. I'd added some extra chicken so it would last us a bit longer into the week, but of course, I didn't actually do proper math to get all the proportions right. So we ended up adding an extra splash of soy sauce at the table and that really brought the flavors out. And surprisingly, I am not usually a fan of peas or plain peanuts (give me an almond, pine nut, walnut or any other kind of nut any day), but they were both really good additions.

Now here's my only question. The recipie had called for bone in chicken thighs but I could not find any at the grocery store so I just bought regular chicken breasts. And the consistency of the chicken that I ended up with was....the only drawback of the meal. Geoff thinks maybe we need to marinate it first? I wonder if chicken breasts are easier to overcook in a crockpot than dark meat. That would make sense i guess. But any thoughts? Anyone have any ideas how to make the chicken moist and flavorful instead of slightly reminiscent of the texture of...gum that you've chewed too long?