Slow-Cooker Chicken Burrito Bowl (gluten-free, dairy-free)

Life has gotten in the way of this Slacker Gourmet these past few weeks. Our oldest cat, Oliver, was diagnosed with lymphoma in March (following over a month of mysterious symptoms and red herrings leading to incorrect diagnoses), and the 3 weeks that followed were filled with vet visits, tube feeding, and absolutely no cooking at home. Unfortunately, chemotherapy was unsuccessful and he had become too weak to fight any longer, so we had to make the devastating decision to put him to sleep on March 30. The house feels so much emptier without his room-filling purrs. :(

But - life goes on, and our other two kitties, Amber and Orville have been getting awfully spoiled this past week. The emotional toll of the past couple of months plus the constant stream the takeout and restaurant food of the past few weeks haven't done good things to our bodies. It was time to ease back into home cooking, and what better way than with a home adaptation of a takeout favorite?

One of my favorite fast-food(ish) compromises is a burrito bowl from Chipotle. 85% of the deliciousness of a burrito, with about 50% of the guilt. It's easy to recreate most of the yummyness of the bowl at home with a few simple ingredients (and some Slacker Gourmet shortcuts)! Jarred salsa (I use Goya Salsa Verde, due to the hubby's tomato sensitivity), frozen rice and corn (Trader Joe's frozen roasted corn is amazing, if you can get your hands on it!), prepared guacamole, and boneless chicken thighs make this come together so quickly - 5-10 minutes of prep in the morning, and another 10 minutes at night.

This is not a beautiful dish. If I had used sour cream and shredded cheese and sliced avocado, it could have been prettier... but that's at odds with the dairy-free (and always-lazy) Slacker Gourmet household these days. Of course, you can use whatever toppings you'd like!

The recipe as written makes A LOT of the chicken and bean mixture - but it freezes really well for future use! You can always use it as an actual burrito filling or nacho topping, too.

Slow-Cooker Chicken Burrito Bowl 
Adapted from Slow-Cooker Chicken and Pinto Bean Burrito Bowl
Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• 2 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 16-18oz jar of your favorite salsa
• 1 Tbsp cumin
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• a healthy squeeze (approximately 1 tsp) agave nectar
• 1 15oz can pinto beans
• cooked brown or white rice
• salt and pepper to taste
• Any combination of your favorite toppings or add-ins, including:
• cooked corn
• guacamole
• sour cream
• shredded cheese
• sliced olives
• finely diced onions
• chopped cilantro
• lime wedges

Directions

Put chicken in a medium (3-4 qt) slow cooker. Mix together salsa, cumin, chili powder and agave nectar and pour over chicken. Cook on low for 6 hours (chicken thighs are pretty forgiving, so you can go longer, but it's better if you have a slow cooker that can switch to "keep warm" mode after 6 hours). 

After 6 hours, shred chicken with 2 forks right in the slow cooker. Drain and rinse the pinto beans and add to the chicken mixture in the slow cooker. Stir to combine, and cover the slow cooker and cook for an additional 1/2 hour on high or 1 hour on low. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper if needed (I usually don't need to add any).

Meanwhile, cook rice, if it's not already made. Season hot rice with a bit of salt and pepper (some lime juice is nice if you happen to have it, but completely optional). 

Make your burrito bowls by spooning a bed of rice into a bowl, and topping with a hearty serving of the chicken and bean mixture. Top with your favorite additions (corn and guacamole are the standard toppings in the Slacker Gourmet household). Enjoy!

Print this recipe!

Slow Cooker: Pumpkin, Turkey, White Beans, and Greens Chili

The hubby's tomato allergy has been somewhat of a challenge to accommodate. Many of our favorite easy meals were tomato-based (which is evident throughout the blog), and there's no easy substitute.

As the weather started getting cooler, my mind turned to chili. But - my standard slow cooker chili recipes call for cans of diced and pureed tomatoes... clearly it was time to think a little differently. White chilis are good, but I wanted something that had that hearty, stick-to-your-ribs feeling like a tomato-based chili. Chilis based on a purée of reconstituted dried chile (with an E!) peppers provided the richness I was looking for, but making the purée was an additional time-consuming step that I simply don't always have the time or inclination to do.

However, a couple of weeks ago, I had made a very successful pumpkin lasagna (which was maybe a bit more involved than a typical Slacker Gourmet recipe, but oh boy was it delicious). While eating the leftovers, I realized that I felt just like I was eating a red-sauce lasagna, but without a tomato in sight. The pumpkin added an earthy slight sweetness, but did NOT taste like a pumpkin pie. I wondered if the same principle would apply to chili. 

I searched around and found this recipe for a pumpkin, turkey and white bean chili. However, based on the comments, I tweaked the amount of meat and spices, and added baby kale (though any leafy greens would be a very welcome addition). The verdict? YUM... and even better the next day! It's not spicy, but it's quite flavorful, and easy to kick up with some hot sauce at the table. And (shhh!), it's actually quite healthy, but you don't really think about that when you're inhaling it.  

Pumpkin, Turkey, White Beans and Greens Chili

Makes 6+ servings

Adapted from Crock Pot Turkey White Bean Pumpkin Chili

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds ground turkey
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (I used the pre-minced fridge stuff)
• 2 heaping teaspoons chili powder
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 heaping teaspoons cumin
• 1 heaping teaspoon oregano
• a couple hefty shakes of cinnamon
• 2 15oz cans small white beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 15oz can plain pumpkin purée (make sure the ingredients are only pumpkin, no spices!) OR 1 12oz package of frozen pureed winter squash (the kind that comes in a frozen brick)
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 4.5 oz can chopped green chiles 
• 1/2 pound baby kale or other leafy greens, cut into bite sized pieces
• olive oil for sautéing
• salt to taste

Directions

Add all spices, beans, pumpkin purée, chicken broth (use only 1 1/2 cups of broth if using frozen squash - it's more liquid-y to begin with), chiles, and a good pinch of salt to the slow cooker and stir to mix together. 

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add ground turkey, onion and garlic to the skillet, along with a pinch of salt, and sauté until turkey is no longer pink and onions are soft, about 5-7 minutes. Add to slow cooker and stir until coated with the pumpkin mixture. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours.

About 45 minutes before serving, boost the heat to high (if it isn't there already). Add the baby kale (or other greens) in handfuls, stirring after each addition. They should wilt pretty quickly. Cover and cook for another 20-30 minutes. If the mixture looks watery, uncover and cook for another 15 minutes. If using spinach, you'll probably only need 15-20 minutes of additional cooking to wilt and soften it, but the hardier greens will need the full 45 minutes. 

Taste and correct seasoning (you'll likely need a bit more salt), and serve!

Print this recipe!

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When I made this, I cooked the ground turkey separately from the onions and garlic, but with a sufficiently large skillet, I see no reason to keep them separated. My hubby suggested that some sautéed mushrooms would be a welcome addition, and I agree.

As for accompaniments - we ate it with shredded Monterey Jack cheese, Fage 2% plain Greek yogurt, and Tostitos Multigrain Scoops. The plain Greek yogurt made a fabulous stand-in for sour cream (seriously, I think it's even better!).

Why Scoops instead of plain tortilla chips? Because they're delicious, and who really needs a spoon when you can do this:

Chicken Avocado Salad, Revisited

 

So, once upon a time (read: for the past few summers), the hubby and I both had a love affair with Chicken Avocado Salad. I mean, seriously. It was basically deconstructed guacamole with chicken - what's not to love?

But then... disaster struck. More specifically, the hubby gradually realized that he had developed a tomato allergy. No more chicken avocado salad? Whatever would we do on those hot, sultry nights where we needed a legitimate cover for eating guacamole with a fork?

Summer hit with a vengeance in Massachusetts this week, and as usual, my thoughts turned to the beloved chicken avocado salad. Was it possible to swap the tomatoes out for something equally delicious, but in a completely different way? A quick Google search later, and I had cobbled together a recipe that, quite frankly, beat the pants off the original incarnation. And it took me, my cluttered kitchen and my pathetic knife skills only 30 minutes to put it all together. 

 

Chicken Avocado Salad: The Tomato-less Version

Makes 3-4 servings
Adapted from Avocado Chicken Salad and Chicken and Avocado Salad

Ingredients

• 3/4 pound cooked chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces *
• 1/2 pound frozen corn, thawed but not hot **
• 1 14oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 large avocado or 2 small avocados, diced
• 3 scallions, white and green parts sliced
• a handful (about 1/4 cup) of cilantro, chopped
• 2 limes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Combine chicken, corn, beans, avocados, scallions and cilantro in a large bowl. Zest (using a microplane if possible - it's much less frustrating than a zester) and juice limes into a small bowl and add the olive oil. Whisk together (or use a fork, it's easier) until it looks like a dressing, and dump it into the big bowl with everything else. Mix it all together with a big spoon. Taste and add salt and pepper, if needed.

* I used Trader Joe's frozen grilled chicken.
** 3 minutes in the microwave on 50% power did it for me. I used Trader Joe's frozen Fire-Roasted corn - highly recommended!

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Another beautiful thing about this salad - if you decide you want this taste of summer in, say, November, black beans and frozen corn never go out of season, unlike tomatoes. And sometimes, we all need a little summer in the middle of cold November rain.

Slacker Gourmet Formula: Pasta/Grain Salad

Well, more than a year has passed since my last Slacker Gourmet post. Oops. I could make all sorts of excuses about buying a house, and job changes, and blah blah blah, but instead, I'll just refer you to the "Slacker" portion of the blog title, and just go from there.

As a UI Developer by trade, creating web page templates is a big part of my day-to-day life - a basic structure for a page, filled in with different content, depending on a particular database call. For a large site with hundreds of thousands of pages, templating is completely necessary, otherwise we'd be reinventing the wheel over and over again.

But what does that have to do with cooking? Well, as I postulated in my Fondue Theory post, the creation of a basic formula (or template) for a type of dish makes it easy (and nearly foolproof) to implement nearly infinite variations, limited only by your own imagination. Some basic knowledge of complementary flavors is certainly helpful, but I'll happily make some suggestions to get you started.

My Pasta/Grain Salad formula has been a couple of years in development. Its roots are in Lemony Couscous with Chickpeas, which I've made a shockingly large number of times. However, as a Slacker Gourmet, I crave variety - no matter how easy and tasty something is, I will get sick of it after eating it enough times.

Enter the formula. As long as everything stays in the same basic proportions, there is no reason that nearly every component can't be swapped out for something else in the same basic family (black beans instead of chickpeas - yes; M&Ms instead of olives - not so much). This is where that general idea of complementary flavors will come in handy.

And now... the magic formula!

Pasta/Grain Salad
Serves 4-6 as a main dish, 8-10 as a side dish
Adapted from Lemony Couscous with Chickpeas

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups uncooked pasta/grain
• Enough water to cook the pasta/grain
• 1/4 cup citrus juice or other acidic liquid (vinegar is untested; will probably need less)
• 1 tablespoon citrus zest, if using citrus juice
• 3 tablespoons high-quality oil (extra-virgin olive oil is probably best in most cases)
• 1 14oz can of beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 to 1 cup of something briny, like olives, capers, artichoke hearts, rinsed (the stronger the flavor, the less you need)
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup of something crunchy, like nuts, seeds, wasabi peas, freeze-dried edamame (though the latter two will soften up the longer the salad sits)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped herbs and/or scallions
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cook pasta/grain according to package directions; let cool. Chop or slice the briny component if it needs it. Whisk together the oil, acidic liquid, and zest (if using). If using nuts, toast in a dry skillet over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes, moving them constantly with a wooden spoon, until lightly browned and fragrant (as soon as you smell them, get them off the heat). Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Taste and add salt and pepper, if necessary.

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What's so amazing about this salad? Well, it's freakin' delicious. You can make a huge batch and eat it for a week (it keeps wonderfully in the fridge). Depending on the starch component you choose, you don't even need to heat up the kitchen to cook it (see this post for Slacker Gourmet-approved easy starch cooking).

And since it's that time of year, I'd be remiss if I didn't say how great it is for summer potlucks: there's no mayo or dairy to spoil in the heat, and it can easily accommodate special diets and allergies without sacrificing flavor. Gluten allergy? Use gluten-free pasta, rice or quinoa. Vegetarian/vegan? You're already all set as-is! Nut allergy? Leave 'em out - they're not a deal-breaker.

Variations
"Okay, okay, I'm sold!" you say. "But, I need some inspiration for the flavor combos... help me out here!"

Flavor combo	Pasta/grain	Acidic liquid	Oil	Beans	Briny	Crunch	Herbs
Mediterranean *	Quinoa**	Lemons	EVOO	Chickpeas	Kalamata olives	Slivered almonds	Parsley
Italian	Orzo or farro	Lemons	EVOO	Cannellini beans	Black olives	Pine nuts	Basil
Mexican	Rice	Limes	EVOO or canola	Black beans	Black olives	Pumpkin seeds (pepitas)	Cilantro and scallions
Moroccan	Couscous	Oranges	EVOO	Chickpeas	Oil-cured black olives	Pistachios	Mint

* Pictured above.
** Yes, I know quinoa is technically a seed.

Want to mix it up more? Go ahead and throw some raisins in the Moroccan variation, some feta in the Mediterranean variation, or avocado in the Mexican variation (though it may not keep as long with avocado). Just keep those flavors complementary, and you can't go wrong!