Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Guest Post: Crockpot Chicken and Vegetables

Hi Pieces of Cake Readers, my name is Elizabeth and I am Katie’s co-worker. I have worked with Katie since July 2011. We quickly discovered that we both have a mutual love for blogs: instant coworker bonding.

I am sorry I do not have a current picture of myself to go along with this post, so that you can picture me while I am sharing my recipe with you. However – I do have the second best thing. I have a picture of the celebrity I closest resemble, that I am ALWAYS mistaken for:

 
Ok Ok, maybe I look like her only a little bit different. 

I have been wanting invited myself to write a guest post for Katie’s blog. I sometimes get the urge to cook and half way to through the process forget to document the steps. This past Sunday I was home and had that urge and dived into 2 cooking projects – pretzel bites and a chicken slow cooker recipe. 

First I made pretzel bites with a cheese sauce:


I wish I would have documented the pretzels, but they were super hard to make and I advise against trying to do it yourself. So this post is going to focus on the chicken dish. 

Katie and I split a CSA share and receive a great box of local produce/eggs each week. I know she has written about the CSA in the past so I will not go into all the details again. We are in the middle of our Winter Produce Share and receive a lot of root vegetables. I wanted to make a dish that encompasses many of these root vegetables, something hearty and something that I could re-heat and have it taste great for dinner throughout the week. 

Ingredients: Onion, Mushrooms, Carrots, Parsnip, Radishes, Squash, Potatoes, Ginger, Salt, Pepper, Dried Basil, Dried Ginger, Thyme, Fresh Rosemary, Olive Oil, Chicken and Chicken Broth.

These are the veggies on hand that I wanted to use:


Pictured above: Onion, Carrots, Radishes, Mushrooms, Potatoes, Squash and Parsnip.
I washed the vegetables real well and then started to slice and dice them.


In the meantime I had my slow cooker out and had it on high and put about 2T of olive oil in the bottom of the pan and the sprayed the sides of the pan with olive oil via the Misto

Once all the vegetables were chopped up I tossed them into the slow cooker along with the spices/herbs listed above.



I put the slow cooker on high because I started this recipe at 3pm and wanted it done at a decent time at night. While the slow cooker ingredients were cooking, I cut the chicken into strips and browned the chicken. Once the chicken was browned I added it into the slow cooker.


I turned the slow cooker down to low once the chicken was added and let the dish cook for 4 hours. 
I debated on what to have with this meal, should I add rice or noodles? But since it was mostly root vegetables, I figure there was enough starch in the meal and that I should move on and just enjoy it as is.
It didn’t look too beautiful on the plate, but the taste was definitely worth the efforts in making the dish. I will certainly make this again.

Thank you for reading and hopefully Katie will let me post again. I do not have a blog but you can find me on Twitter.

Elizabeth

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Krispy Kreme Challenge 2012

On Saturday, I ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge (KKC) - an NC State tradition. This year, they increased the race amount by about a mile. The KKC involves running 2.5 miles from the NC State Campus, to the Krispy Kreme store, eating 12 donuts, and running 2.5 miles back, in under 60 minutes, and without puking. 

World's most flattering picture


Look at all of the people!

For those of you who know me well, I do not like donuts. Particularly Krispy Kreme donuts. I go about as far as eating the Dunkin' Donuts donut holes. That is about it. So I entered the race just to run, and to see really if I could do it!

Well, I did it! Look at me go...

Seriously, how did I get such bad posture?


I did finish the race, and I ran back with the entire box of donuts! And various clothing articles strapped to my belt. It was cold out but I was H-O-T!

Woop, woop!


I finished the race according to my Garmin in 54:41. I watched it pretty closely, and kept a sub-12 minute pace the entire time! You will notice I clocked in at a little less than 5 miles - well, I paused my Garmin due to the complete chaos at the Krispy Kreme store. You couldn't really move to the exit chute and it was hard to get water (I ended up just skipping it all together), and I also stripped off some layers because it was a good place to stop. Once I moved through the area, I started up the Garmin again - and walked about .25 miles without monitoring my time. 

According to the chip on my bib (crossing the start line to crossing the finish line), I finished the race in 1 hour, 1 minute, and 23 seconds and came in 1647th place (for the 'casual runners' division). Not too shabby for wasting a lot of time at the Krispy Kreme store. Next year I will finish the run portion in under an hour, and just shove through the crowd! 

There is a bigger piece to the puzzle though - the Krispy Kreme challenge raises money for the NC Children's Hospital. A great cause. They raised $122,000 this year - over 7,000 runners signed up and participated. 

I can't wait to do this event again next year - maybe I have some friends that will join me!!!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...