Some things you just cannot replicate. I got pretty close with the Moroccan Spiced Pork from Gervais & Vine, but my first attempt at duplicating the Greek chicken salad from Zoë’s Kitchen failed. It wasn’t like an “ugh this is inedible” failure, but more of a “there’s no way I can copy the deliciousness” failure.
As I tweeted yesterday, “I just threw a bunch of shit in the crock pot. In about 5 hours, I’ll either have a delicious meal or an excuse to order out.”
Un-Zoë’ed Greek Chicken
(As with most of my “cooking” recipes, these are estimates…when I’m experimentin’, I use the little-o-this, little-o-that method)
3-4 chicken breasts
2 onions, sliced
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1/8 cup cider vinegar
~3-4 Tbls balsamic vinegar
~3-4 Tbls EVOO
1 Tbls minced garlic
2 Tbls chopped sundried tomatoes
1 Tbls dried oregano
1 Tbls dried parsley
2 tsp dried rosemary
3 Tbls lemon juice
A few grinds of black pepper
Place sliced onions in a slow cooker and top with all the wet ingredients and spices. Mix them all pretty well so the onions are coated.
My chicken was frozen, so I thawed it in the microwave a bit before putting it in a hot oiled pan (med-high heat) to sear the outsides. I was attempting to make the outside a little tougher so the end result wasn’t sooo fall-apart tender. I think the overall concept would’ve worked better with 1) fresh, un-frozen chicken, 2) a hotter pan, and 3) less time spent in the crock pot.
(this step was pretty unappealing-looking, so no pictures!)
Next, I put the chicken in the pot and covered it with the onions. I put the crock pot on low heat for 4-5 hours and came back to flip the chicken and re-cover it with onions every hour or so.
In the meantime, I got a pretty little package from POM Wonderful!! I’m so stoked to try some recipes!
I feel like I’ve “made it” as a blogger – I finally got me some POM juice! While I waited for dinner, I made my first pom-tastic creation…a bastardized Pom-tini!
Bastardized Pom-tini
1 shot POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
1 shot Clementine Izze
1 shot vodka
1/2 shot lime juice
raspberry seltzer
maraschino cherries + juice
Before I did anything, I put my martini glass in the fridge to make it nice and frosty! I mixed the first 4 ingredients in a shaker and topped it off with some selzer and ice before shake-shake-shaking. In the martini glass, I put a couple of cherries and about 1 Tbls of the maraschino juice before pouring my cocktail. It was tangy and tart and not too sweet – perfecto!
So back to dinner – I chopped up a piece of chicken and served it on a salad of romaine lettuce, adding about 1/2 cup of onions to it along with some sliced cucumber, parmesan cheese (too bad I had just run out of feta!), and Publix low-fat Greek dressing. It was good, but it was definitely nowhere near Zoë’s!
Anybody have any good POM Wonderful recipes to share? I’m working on a pork tenderloin recipe for dinner but haven’t yet pounded out the specifics!