So, I Got A Crockpot

Photo by Sarah Brown on Unsplash

About two weeks prior to me writing this, it was my birthday. (Happy Birthday Me!) One of the gifts I received was a slow cooker and I finally got a chance to try it out. So, I went online, searched for some recipes and got started.

The recipe I decided to try out was for "Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan Tortellini".

Ingredients
1 jar (24ish oz) of tomato basil pasta sauce
2 cups of chicken broth
1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 20oz package of cheese-filled tortellini
1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese or 4 oz of non-shredded mozzarella
1 teaspoon of salt

Directions

1. Spray 5-quart slow cooker with cooking spray.
2. Mix pasta sauce, chicken broth and salt in cooker
3. Add chicken breasts to slow cooker and cover.
4. Cook on low setting for 3 to 4 hours (or until juice of chicken is clear when cut)
5. Remove chicken from slow cooker and transfer to cutting board.
6. Stir tortellini into cooker. Cover and cook on Low for 15 minutes
7. While pasta cooks, cut chicken into strips or chunks (you can also shred it with a fork, if you want)
8. Top tortellini with chicken and then over chicken with mozzarella cheese.
9. Cover and cook for 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Verdict

I picked this dish because it sounded like something easy to make. While I've used a slow cooker before, I hadn't used this model before, which has different features than my mother's which is about 15 years old. This was also my first time cooking chicken in a slow cooker and I'm very paranoid about accidentally giving myself salmonella. 

All of that being said, this recipe was a pretty good choice as a "I need to test this out" recipe. I did put a little bit too much chicken stock in, because I wasn't paying attention, but overall, it tasted good. Will I make it again? I'm not sure, but at least I know how to use this device.

Here is a picture of the tasty fruits of my labors:

(While this was a post about cooking, I'm not going to suddenly turn into a cooking blog. I might post some cooking/food related content in the future, but it won't be on a regular basis. I just wanted to talk about my slow cooker adventure.) 

What's your opinion about slow cookers? Are there any recipes you'd recommend?

Picky Eaters

Over the 25 years I’ve been alive, I’ve met plenty of picky eaters. (And for the record, people with food sensitivities, religious dietary restrictions or those who choose to be vegetarian/vegan don’t count as “picky” for the purposes of this argument.) Also, I'm not including kids right now, because I'm willing to give them some leeway. I find picky eaters’ entire existence to be weird to me, but then again, I don’t consider myself picky. There are three or four things I refuse to eat, but that’s it. After a lot of thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of picky eaters: removers and non-removers.

Here’s what I mean- Person A and Person B are both picky, and for the point of this argument, they both dislike the same food, say mushrooms. They both go to a pizza party where all the cheese pizza has been eaten, leaving only mushroom left. Person A will remove the offending topping and eating their now mushroom-less pizza. Person B will sit in the corner and sulk about the fact that there’s no cheese pizza left. Person A is a “remover”, Person B is not. I tend to dislike Person B a lot more.

Don’t get me wrong. People like what they like. Everyone in my family except me likes zucchini; hearing how much they like it doesn’t make me any more inclined to eat it. But I also don’t expect everyone else to accommodate my preferences. If I dish has something I don’t like, I’ll eat around it or get something else. If cheese pizza is the only kind of pizza you’ll eat, and you refuse to remove any toppings you dislike, either ask someone to save you some, or get in line before all the cheese is eaten. It’s not my responsibility to make sure your specific tastes are accounted for.

Thinking about picky eaters, in the above example, got me thinking about picky eaters at restaurants. Having worked in food service before, I’ve got some strong opinions about accommodating people with very particular taste. My philosophy boils down to this: be realistic and don’t make your specific order super disruptive to the person making it. You want a burger, but without lettuce? That’s fine. The burger is made-to-order, they can just not put the lettuce on. You want clam chowder without potatoes in it? Not gonna happen. The chowder’s already been made, the kitchen’s not gonna make a separate soup just for you. It all depends on what you don’t want and are trying to remove. My sister doesn’t like poached eggs, but she loves eggs Benedict; her solution is to order “eggs Benedict without the egg”. She gets weird looks, but its possible to do that. A restaurant probably can’t give you dairy-free fettuccine Alfredo at the drop of a hat. If the ingredient you don’t like can’t easily be substituted out or removed, order something else.

Everyone’s tastes are different. I understand that. But I can’t really understand people who know they don’t like something and refuse to put in a little bit of effort to avoid it.