Crock Pot Chicken Cacciatore with Vermicelli Pasta
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
9:30pm @ Home
This morning, decided to prepared dinner in the crock pot. Was going out at 3pm to send Justine to class, meet up with a Singaporean couple here on a short break at 4pm, pick Justine up at 7:40pm, and go straight to the train station to get Bryan at 8:30pm. By the time, we came back, it would be too late to cook dinner and I really didn't want to break the "eat dinner at home" rule that I've imposed on myself. So checked YouTube and came across a really simple crock pot recipe : Chicken Cacciatore. It's okay if we're not sure how to pronounce the second word, who minds right, as long as the name sounds exotic. :D
Ingredients required as per recipe:
onions (got),
carrots (got),
celery (don't have - Justine's happy),
half chicken (cut) (only had one-third chicken),
can tomatoes (used one fresh tomato chopped roughly and half a can of tomato puree),
parmesan cheese (don't have, only cheddar),
garlic (got),
basil (got),
thyme (got),
oregano (don't have but used sage instead),
parsley (yes got),
salt (seasalt),
mozzarela cheese (nope, don't have, only cheddar).
Added to that : One table spoon of blended chilly ginger garlic shallot paste. Potatoes.
1. Put everything (except the cheese) into the crock pot. My favourite part. Set the timer on low heat for slow cooking. Should be ready in 6 hours or so. I only turned it on when we left the house at 3pm.
Actually, the chicken cacciatore was supposed to go with rice. But by the time we got home, it was 9 pm. It was too late to cook rice. So pasta to the rescue. The back-up plan. The crock pot dish was ready - 6 hours, just nice.
2. Took out vermicelli pasta that cooked in only 6 minutes. Added seasalt.
3. Meanwhile, prepare serving dish. Drizzled some extra virgin olive oil on the dish. When pasta was ready, drained and poured on the pyrex. Tossed well.
4. The crock pot chicken looks promising. Added the 2 squares of cheddar cheese and allowed it to melt. Poured the contents over the pasta.
5. Garnished with coriander, fresh carrots and small slices of lemon. And sprinkled black sesame seeds on top for a bit of uh, contrast.
Couldn't believe the dish was so very easy to do. Felt the chicken could have been better a little bit more moist though. Invited the Singaporean couple over to the house on Thursday. We're going to cook Chicken Briyani for dinner. :D Stay tuned for that. Hayley will be joining us too. The couple, inspired by our 10 day detox program, have decided that they will also adopt and follow the regime when they get back to Singapore.
To Sum Up : Had one shaker of The Green Drink for breakfast, 2 slices of bread with mayo and cheese for lunch, had one bungkus nasi lemak, steamed ubi, taufu bakar during tea time at Chawan, Bangsar with our Singaporean friends and Hayley. And Dinner.
So, 1 shaker of The Green Drink and 3 (?) meals.
THREE??? Yikes!
Time of Posting : 11:32pm
