Dinner- epic Fail.

I make dinner here. I like it. I haven't actually had to cook for more than just me very often so It's fun to be able to try new actual meals. Recently I've really been trying to incorporate more vegetables into what we're eating. I don't love vegetables, but aside from Asparagus, Nick would never eat a vegetable if he could get away with it. Last night I came home from class and asked if he had made any vegetables with the dinner in the crock pot. His response? I had some spinach dip. Um no dear, doesn't count.

Anyway, lets focus. I had a recipe for lemon pepper chicken in the crockpot. Crockpot meals for the day I have classes are fab because Nick can eat and I can eat later when I get home, or whatever. We're not stuck with both of us eating fast food at random times.  From my childhood I had a somewhat severe aversion to lemon flavored chicken. Once, mom made such a dish, and my ever-so-dramatic brother and I were pretty sure she tried to poison us. For months whenever she made chicken we were sure she was putting hidden drops of lemon on the chicken. I thought maybe I'd be a big girl and give it a whirl.

Doesn't it look delicious. Ya, well that picture is not what mine looked like, but that's fine. I'm not in the food biz, I'm just trying to make a yummy, (EASY), healthy dinner for us. 

Here's the recipe:

Lemon Garlic Chicken Crock Pot Recipe

Ingredients:
- 8 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 10 garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced
- 2 yellow onions, chopped
- 2 cups fat free, low sodium chicken broth
- 1/4 cup lemon pepper seasoning
- 4 tbsp paprika
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 tsp lemon zest

Directions:
Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Mix together the lemon pepper seasoning, paprika and salt. Coat the chicken with the spice mixture. Place the coated chicken in the crock pot and cover with the fat free chicken broth, garlic cloves, parsley and onions and lemon zest. Cook on low heat for about 3-4 hours (or until done)

So easy, right? Here's what I did:

1. Plug in and turn on CrockPot

2. Add 8 boneless skinless chicken tenderloins

3. 10 seems like a lot of garlic cloves, so I'll only add 3 chopped.

4. I don't like onions. I'll only add one.

5. Add 2 cups of low sodium chicken broth

6. Shook in about 1/4 cup of lemon pepper seasoning. Seem's like a lot. hmm.

7. I don't have paprika

8. No fresh parsley, but I have some in my spice cabinet. I just sprinkle some in

9. No lemon zest-- substitute lemon juice? sure.

10. Leave for work. Return at 3 pm, stir. Turn to just warm as everything seems cooked.

11. We ate it when I got home at 7:30.

12. OH also, I added a can of whole white potatoes so we had some potatoey thing in the dish. 

Nick dished up our chicken and I nuked some green beans.

We dive in.

I cough. Hmmm I must have had a pepper on that bite!

Nick says he agrees, navigate around the pepper seasoning.

I try a bite of potato and have to find something other than my wine to quench my thirst.

One more bite- it can't be that bad.

I want to vomit.

Nick says, "Want to put in that frozen pizza?"

"ya... scrap this lemon pepper hell."

As I try to drink everything we have in the fridge, Nick makes the pizza.

Bummer. I know I took some liberties, but I usually do and things turn out ok at the very least. I haven't had an epic fail yet. Oh well- no lemon chicken in our future!