Our Favorite Lunch Recipe

We love to make this great recipe on Sundays and bring it to work for lunch throughout the week. Tom created this recipe because he wanted to make sure his seven-year-old son was eating enough vegetables (Ethan already loves quinoa!).  This is one of my most favorite things Tom makes for us! Everyone at work always tells me how good it smells when I heat it up and I think it tastes even better than it smells! 

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Ingredients

Chicken

1 whole chicken

soup veg (optional)

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

sea salt

pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
paprika

Recommended vegetable mix: (use any vegetables you have in the house)

1 pint brussell sprouts
1 pound of broccoli flourets
1/2 pound baby carrots, sliced
2 cups fresh green beans, chopped
4 cups of fresh kale or spinach
Olive oil
Garlic, chopped
Sea Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)


Quinoa

1 cup of quinoa

2 cups of chicken stock (use stock made from boiled chicken)

To taste:

Sea Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Paprika

Directions

Chicken

In a large pot, boil whole chicken with giblets (take these out of the chicken and plastic and boil in pot), garlic and other seasonings until chicken reaches an internal temp of 165 degrees.  You can add soup veg to the pot to add even more flavor to the chicken stock (you'll be using the stock to make the quinoa). 

Remove chicken from pot and let cool.  Strain chicken stock into two large measuring cups (you will need two cups for the quinoa and two cups for the vegetable mix). 

After chicken has cooled, remove the skin and pull chicken meat from the bone. 

Quinoa

Using the chicken stock made above, bring all ingredients (quinoa, chicken stock, seasonings) to a boil. Stir. Cover and turn down to a low simmer. Quinoa should absorb all liquid and will be ready in about 15 minutes.

Vegetables

In a large pot with olive oil and chopped garlic, add vegetables sautee vegetable mix (excluding the kale/spinach). Season vegetables with salt and pepper, and sautee for about ten minutes. 

Bringing it all together...

Add pulled chicken and two cups of chicken stock to pot with sauteed vegetables and continue to cook over medium flame.  Add kale or spinach and stir.  Add cooked quinoa, stir everything together and remove from heat. 

Enjoy!