Travel meal: Crock Pot Chicken Tacos

On the road again.

This week I was unable to book a hotel with a kitchen, so I booked a room with a nice big wet bar, and brought my crock pot with me.

Which is why I am now sitting in my hotel room enjoying tacos for dinner.

Hotel Crock Pot Chicken Tacos

Put the ingredients into crock pot in this order:

crock pot liner
1 clove of peeled garlic, snapped in half if you can manage it
2 chicken thighs
1 stalk of torn up kale
1 package of GF taco seasoning
1 can of black beans, undrained*

Set it on low when you leave in the morning and put your do not disturb sign up. (I have no idea if crock pots are allowed in this hotel... I am normally a rule-follower but I don't care. I'm a hungry rebel.)

When you finally leave the lab and head back to the hotel, you'll be greeted by a nice hot dinner. Serve the lovely chicken-y, bean-y feast in a corn tortilla with the cutest little bowl of rice and avocado. Yum.

I know I'm not the only person out there who habitually overstuffs their tacos. Every. Time.

*The can of beans with the pull top was crucial because I do not routinely travel with a can opener, but I have ordered one to add to my travel kit.

I will easily get 2 other meals from this, and as usual, I'm thrilled to have a safe, gluten free meal that isn't a salad while I'm traveling.

This week's menu, travel edition

In this week's travel chronicles, I'm in the same city but staying at a different hotel. For some reason, the hotel I stayed in last week (with the full kitchen) is $30 higher this week and therefore out of company policy. Of course.

I booked the next best thing, a king suite at a Hampton. It's got lots of room, but also a wet bar area that has a sink, microwave, mini fridge, and plenty of counter space.

I did a little planning ahead and wrote out a menu so I could plan how I was going to feed myself without a stovetop and avoid eating salads for every meal.

See? Evidence.

I packed my crock pot + a liner in my suitcase and that thing is a game changer. Went to the grocery store and got a few things*, and also I of course packed my travel kit.

So. Here's what I ate this week:

Breakfast: Microwave scrambled egg with veggies, plus fruit.
(don't knock a microwaved egg until you have no other safe options)

Lunch: Turkey and avocado sandwiches (with udi's bread)

Dinner:
Crock pot chicken tacos
5 points
Tuna salad

The crock pot made plenty of leftovers, and I found a 100% gluten free restaurant, with a yoga studio right next to it, how wonderful, woo! This week I've got a happy belly.

*For reference, the grocery list:
Eggs
Fruit
Avocado
Kale
Chicken thighs
Garlic
Taco Seasoning
Rice
Beans
Bread
Lunchmeat
Mayo and Mustard
Wine
Water
Tuna

hotel room chicken and veggies

I'm back on the road again.

I try to book a hotel room with a full kitchen, and Homewood Suites is my top choice. There was a Hampton Inn 2 miles from where I was working today, but I'll drive 20 minutes to a full kitchen. Absolutely worth it.

I stopped at the grocery store on the way to the hotel, and picked up:

For breakfast:
-eggs
-plums
-blackberries
-a cucumber
-carrots
-prunes (regularity is key, man. these help.)

For snacks:
-almonds
-pecan nut thins and sunbutter- I brought some with me
-fruit/veggies leftover from breakfast

For dinner:
-boneless skinless chicken thighs
-frozen broccoli
-Green Giant riced veggies that I happened to see in the frozen veggie section.
[Contains mostly riced cauliflower, a few green peas, yellow onions, a tiny bit of carrots, and green onions]
-an $8 pinot noir

Anyway. Dinner.

I got "home," traded pants for shorts, and took off my bra so fast you didn't even see it.

I always wash the hotel dishes before using them; you never know what kind of gluten was there before you and how well things were cleaned.

I poured myself a juice glass full of wine, pushed play on my Spotify playlist, and fired up the electric stovetop. Armed with my handy travel kit, I tossed into a hot pan two chicken thighs seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Danced around a bit to some happy reggae music.
Stretched a bit on my travel yoga mat while I talked to my cute man on the phone.

When the chicken was done, I shredded it with two forks.

(The pan was warped and wasn't heating evenly, so I adapted and transferred the half-cooked chicken to the pot that was in the kitchen... Guess I'll be having a poached egg tomorrow morning, yay!)

Add in the veggies, and cook until they're warmed.

The riced veggies were really great. I usually try to bring a little garlic in my travel kit but I forgot, and the onions in this mix really gave this dish some great flavor. There is also a little ziplock seal which was great because I only used half of the bag. I will definitely consider this again for future travel meals.

Since the pot was more crowded than the pan would have been, I kinda mixed everything up into a casserole of sorts.

Dinner was so tasty, and so SAFE. Not a single gluten worry here.
Plus I had leftovers so lunch will also be tasty and safe. Woo!

*makes a note to ask the front desk about a new pan

snacky dinner because it's too hot to cook

When you're sweating through the armpit of summer, the last thing you want to do in the evening is turn on the oven or stand over the stovetop.

Particularly tonight, after spending lots of time outdoors and soaking in the millionth day of hot, humid weather.

I did not have time to set up the crock pot, and did not feel like a salad, so I am having a snacky charcuterie-ish dinner.

The idea is to use what you have, not heat up the house, nourish your body, and fill your belly.

Today's snack plate consisted of:

-Turkey lunchmeat
-Microwaved leftover roasted veggies
-Hummus with extra olive oil and pepper
-Carrot chips
-A few choice leaves from the spring mix that is rapidly getting wilty and sad
-Almonds
-some GF crackers (whatever is the cheapest at the grocery store that week)

Also frequently making an appearance in these types of dinners is:

-Sunbutter or peanut butter
-Snyder's GF pretzels
-fruit
-olives/ pickles
-whatever leftovers look good

I like the variety, I get to use what I have on hand, and the kitchen does not get one. single. degree. hotter.

one pan chicken and veggies

Tonight for dinner, I give you another one-pan masterpiece.

Well, the term "masterpiece" is subjective.

It doesn't look like much, but there's nothing I love more than when dinner is simple to cook AND clean up.

The basic formula:
1. Line a sheet pan with foil and spray it with cooking spray.
2. Add meat and veggies
3. Spray with more cooking spray, season with salt and pepper and whatever else.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes (depending on when the meat is done) while you relax and enjoy a glass of wine.

That's it.

Tonight's pan contained boneless chicken thighs seasoned with thyme, smoked paprika, and salt/ pepper. Plus cabbage and sweet potatoes.

Pretty much every vegetable tastes good roasted, and roasted cabbage is particularly good when it's this crispy and delicious. If you cut the sweet potato into small cubes, it cooks fast so it's all done at the same time.

I put this all on top of some greens with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lime for a very non-boring salad.

pretty veggie pizza

It has been a long time since I've eaten pizza. Even longer since I've made a pizza.

How did I let that happen?? Pizza is delicious.
I have a feeling pizza's about to make it back into the rotation for a while.

I felt inspired by Smitten Kitchen's recent post on instagram, and planned to make some sort of pretty zucchini-ful pizza this week.
Then, I noticed that FG's fridge conveniently contained both yellow and green squash that he had no plans for... it was the universe aligning, really.

This pizza is very simple, very fresh, and very tasty.

It was the first time I've made my gluten free pizza crust with my new flour blend. (I can't find sorghum flour any more so I subbed millet flour and it behaves a little differently.)

You can use a store-bought crust, or make your own. My recipe is more like a very thin foccacia bread than a traditional pizza crust, but hey, I like it.

This was also the first time trying a pizza recipe with this much squash. I was a little worried that the squash would be too wet for a pizza and make everything soggy. So much could go wrong.

Spoiler: The squash wasn't soggy, and we ate practically the whole thing.

Ingredients:
1 GF pizza crust
1 jar of pizza sauce
thinly sliced yellow and green squash
salt, pepper, olive oil

Start with basic pizza assembly: top the crust with sauce, artfully arrange the veggies, and top with salt and pepper. FG got cheese on his half and I opted for none. That's the awesome thing about pizza; you get to make it how you want it.

Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes, until the crust is done and the zucchini gets a little crispy. Drizzle with olive oil and serve with extra pizza sauce, in case you happen to be one of those people who likes their meals extra saucy.

We both agreed that next time, we'd pile on more of the squash because they shrink up a little after baking.

Beef and veggies

I have been cooking.
Really.

I haven't blogged a lot lately. Since I've only been cooking for myself, I have leaned towards simple, low-fuss meals that don't exactly translate into a recipe.

Except, maybe they do.

Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's not a meal.
So, I'm sharing.

Today I made some beef and vegetables:

Cook in a pan on medium heat:
1 steak that your lovely mother put into your freezer when you were out of town, thawed and cut into thin strips
1/4 onion, chopped
salt and pepper

Cook until the meat has started to brown and your cat wakes up from her nap and meanders into the kitchen. Stir things every minute or so.

When the meat is mostly cooked, add in:
1 handful of kale, torn into pieces
1 cup-ish of that frozen vegetable medley of cauliflower, broccoli, and carrot that everyone has in the back of their freezer.

Let that cook in the hot pan, stirring a little, until the kale is deep green and wilted, and the other veggies have a little char on them.

Serve with some leftover brown rice, a small drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a modestly priced pinot noir.

Towards the middle of the meal, if you toss a little gristle down to the cat, everyone is happy.