Quinoa Tomato Mix

I have to confess that I really don't know what to call this. It was one of those nights when I made dinner by throwing a bunch of stuff in the crockpot and crossing my fingers. It's not really a stew, but it's not a casserole either, so I am just going to call it a mix. I generally follow a recipe but tonight I just made this completely by smell - as in I took things out of the fridge, smelled them, and if it smelled like what I wanted dinner to taste like, I threw it in. This, as close as I can remember, is what I put together

By the way, this is a particularly bad picture, but on the other hand, while it tasted really good, I think that red quinoa never LOOKS that good and my camera resents photographing red things.

3/4 cup red quinoa

1/4 cup white quinoa

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, sliced into thin strips

3 cups water

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

1/4 cup mirin (rice cooking wine)

1 chicken breast, cut into thin strips

1/4 sweet onion, minced

1/4-1/2 tsp garlic powder

a pinch of oregano

a pinch of thyme (I think)

Throw everything into a slow-cooker and cook until it is the consistency that you want. I put mine on high for an hour, then turned it down to low for about 3-4 hours. I am not totally sure about the spices, I added them after the first hour when I tasted it and decided that it needed something.

I am not kidding when I say that I smelled ingredients to see what I wanted to add. It's what works for me. Either the mirin (which I have never used before) or the hoisin sauce gave this just a slight hint of sweetness that I liked but did cut down just a smidge with the spices. I used the mix of quinoa because I wanted to finish up the red quinoa and I used water instead of broth because I didn't have any broth. I used the sun-dried tomatoes because I had them and wanted to use them up. I know that quinoa has a lot of protein on its own, so I didn't need to add the chicken, but I just like this kind of thing better when it has some kind of meat in it, so I added it. I also wanted to see what would happen if I added raw meat instead of cooked and I think it worked well with the water. I think it would have been too salty for my taste had I used the broth instead.

Rating: 4/5

Why? There is something about these sun-dried tomatoes that I didn't particularly care for, I'm not sure why. I did like this dish overall, it was quite filling, and the perfect thing to eat after my first zumba class in over 2 months. In addition, it is quite easy, and I am a BIG fan of that.