Butternut Squash & Quinoa Stew

I bring my lunch to work every day. Don't worry,
that spoon is biodegradable because my firm is aware like that.

Last weekend, during our marathon cooking session, we got to this recipe. Well, let me back track. The weekend I'm taking about was the weekend after the bar exam. Erik grocery shopped for us on Saturday and we put off cooking until after our hike in the redwoods on Sunday (bad idea). We also forgot some of the ingredients so Erik had to go back to the store. For dinner Sunday, we just decided to buy a rotisserie chicken and have the breasts with a salad to make it easy. We don't normally buy pre-made items but I used the leftover meat on the bones for the butternut squash & quinoa stew and attempted to make chicken broth with the bones (yeah, attempt #1 failed (mostly because I got lazy), but I'm sure there will be others).

Anyway, because we were so exhausted I just couldn't imagine following this person's recipe.  She lost me at "Steam the butternut squash until barely tender, about 10 minutes. Remove half of the squash pieces and set aside. Steam the remaining squash until very tender, an additional 4 to 6 minutes. Mash this squash with the back of a fork. Set aside." Umm.. what? There was a lot of cooking and setting aside in her recipe. No, thank you. So, I give you my adaptation.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded & chopped into 1/2-inch cubes
• 2 sweet potatoes, diced into 1/2 inch cubes (we had leftover sweet potatoes from another recipe because we over bought.) 
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth (or whatever chicken broth you have left + water; if adding water, it might be helpful to add a little bit more salt)
• 1 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (I used leftover pieces from the rotisserie chicken carcass)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 can (14 oz) petite diced tomatoes
• 2/3 cup uncooked quinoa
• 3/4 cup pitted and quartered kalamata olives (I just put them in whole -- just warn your spouse so he/she doesn't break a tooth on the olive)
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/4 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley (fresh parsley really makes this dish; I minced an entire bunch from the grocery store instead of just the 1/4 cup)

I was a little wary about the dried oregano because I wasn't sure about the flavor profile and normally I cook with many more spices. But it all worked out just fine and was super tasty.

Directions:

• Heat the oil over medium heat, add the onions and garlic and sauté until fragrant.
• Add the oregano and sauté for 3-5 more minutes.
• Add onion mixture to the slowcooker with all the other ingredients (except for the parsley). No really, toss them in (save yourself time and dishes).
• Cook on low for 7-8 hours (or high 4-5).
• Save the parsley in a separate container to add on the top of the dish later. I found that having the fresh element on the top was a nice contrast to the heartiness of the dish.

All in all, I found our adaptation of the original recipe very delicious and much less time consuming. Because I added the sweet potatoes, the stew was a little hardier than what's pictured on her website.  I think we also got about 8 servings out of it (and they were big portions!). I would say the most time consuming part was dealing with the squash and sweet potatoes (for obvious reasons).  All in all, this was probably about 30-40 minutes of prep for me, but please keep in mind that I tend to be very slow.