Crock Pot Moroccan Chicken

Tried out a new crock pot recipe last week and OH MY YUM!  And easy!  Win Win!

I like to have dinner ready on football game nights, which is sometimes three nights a week!  In the rush of getting home post-game, getting showers done, homework checked, and boys headed to bed, I forgot to take a picture...but I got one of my yummy leftovers!

Here's the original recipe along with my modifications

Ingredients:
2 (15 ounce) cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 (28 ounce) can whole tomatoes drained and cut into 1-inch cubes (I used a can of chopped tomatoes, juice and all)
2 large bell peppers, chopped (I used green because they were cheapest)
1 red onion, chopped
1/3 cup golden raisins (the bites with raisins were VERY yummy, but there weren't many, so I think I will increase this a lot the next time I make this recipe)
2 T tomato paste (I just used the whole little can)
2 T water
1 T ground cumin
2 t ground cinnamon
2 t paprika
1/2 t salt
1.25 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch cubes (I used a whole family package of thighs and put them in whole and shredded them with my handy shredder scissors after it was cooked)
3 T creamy peanut butter or other nut butter of your choice (I used peanut butter...forgot to put in until after I had served first helpings...everyone agreed that it was way yummier with the peanut butter)


Directions:
In your crock pot, stir together all ingredients.  Cover and cook on low 8 hours or 3 to 4 hours on high.

Stir in nut butter of your choice and serve over rice, quinoa, or couscous.  (I think this would be amazing with couscous, but the ease of the rice cooker won this week)

Moroccan Tapenade ... With A Kick

Another recipe I found for the tapas night was this amazing tapenade!  I love tapenade anyway, but this one has a spicy little kick that is so great. 

The only thing I really changed about this is the amount of olive oil I used and the method ... and I doubled their original recipe to make two cups.

400 g Kalamata olives, pitted
3 big cloves of garlic
2 tablespoon harissa (definitely adjust to taste!)
2 tablespoon lemon juice
a handful of chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup olive oil

Throw everything into a food processor and process until desired consistency is reached. 

I served with a thick crunchy crouton type cracker.  You could serve with any cracker or bread!

Moroccan Quinoa in Cucumber Boats

Preparing for a Moroccan Tapas Night that we hosted at church, I googled something like Moroccan finger food and this recipe immediately caught my eye.   I'm glad it did ... it was delicious!  There are no real measurements on her page so I imagine it's a pretty forgiving recipe.  I did mine pretty much like hers but I couldn't find the Sambhar curry powder she calls for so I made substitutions.  Here's what I did.  You can adjust each element to taste.  I'm not kidding, I tasted after each ingredient I added! Also, I cooked this for 100 people to have one each.  When I make it again, I'll probably 1/2 the amount of filling and just eat whatever is leftover.  This amount filled four long continental cucumbers.

I used ...

4 big continental cucumbers
1 cup quinoa (I used a tri-colored one)
3 cups water
2 preserved lemons
4 or 5 sun dried tomatoes
2 spring onions
1 small jalapeno that I picked out of my garden
a small handful of fresh mint
1/4 of a bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro)
handful of pine nuts
olive oil
sea salt
moroccan seasoning
cumin, ground

What I did ...

Cook quinoa.  I did it according to the package instructions which said one part quinoa to three parts water.  Bring to the boil, cover and cook until water is gone.  It took about 20 minutes.

In the meantime ... finely dice the preserved lemons and sun dried tomatoes.  Chop the spring onions small.  Get rid of the seeds and membrane in the jalapeno and finely dice it.  Chop herbs.

After quinoa is finished and has cooled a little bit,  add all of the above that you've just chopped/diced to it.  Drizzle with olive oil and then season with sea salt, moroccan seasoning and cumin.  (or the Sambhar curry powder if you can get it.  I'd love to try that as it is cinnamon based and I think it would really change the flavor .... ) Season to taste ....

For the cucumber boats ... peel down the outside of the cucumber (as you see in photo above) in long strips.  Cut into 3/4 inch 'slices'.  Scoop out the centre with a melon baller and then fill the hole with quinoa mixture.