A Little Prep and Our First Meal: BBQ Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

As I mentioned yesterday, the key to creating a menu that is as affordable as possible, but not boring, is to include similar ingredients prepared in a variety of manners. For this challenge, these ingredients included:

Chicken (4 recipes)

Brown Rice (2 recipes)

Sweet potatoes (2 recipes)

Goat Cheese (2 recipes)

Pie crust (2 recipes)

To make things easier on myself, I prepped the chicken and brown rice along with our first meal of the week, BBQ Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes. I thanked my past self as the week progressed.

The name of the game in my life, currently, is to take the fastest, but tastiest preparation options that I possibly can.  This began by placing 3 of the 4 packages of chicken (6 total chicken breasts) in my trusty Crock Pot, seasoned with salt and pepper. Check out the simple instructions here. For fried rice, I prefer my chicken in chunks rather than shredded, so I will prepare that differently.

After 4 hours, I pulled out the chicken and shredded it all.

Two Chicken breasts, shredded, went back into the crock pot with BBQ sauce to taste.

1.5 cups of chicken was measured out for Chicken Pot Pie and two chicken breasts, plus a little extra was set aside for salad

Finally, I strained the juices from the crockpot to use as chicken stock in my Chicken Pot Pie later in the week.

*Note: This handy little tool is AMAZING.  It has a strainer in the top and can be used to separate fat out of drippings.  The fat just rises to the top and you pour out the stock.  So, if you want to make yummy gravy with less fat, this thing is the jam.  I found mine in the (very dangerous) bonus aisle at Aldi a couple years ago. I’m sure they are everywhere.

While the chicken cooked, I prepped some brown rice for Chicken Stir Fry and the Winter Salad. I was once told that if you can’t cook rice in the traditional manner, you can’t be a chef. I’m clearly not a chef. I have never mastered the art of rice cooking. But, I am good at cheating. Until recently, I made rice in my trusty Crock Pot. But, it took a LONG time, at least 2 hours. This was my first time using the Instant Pot to make Brown Rice, and I am a total convert.

Finally, I cooked up two sweet potatoes for this evening’s dinner. I prepared our potatoes in my new Instant Pot, but you could prepare them in the oven or even in the Crock Pot. I am still learning my Instant Pot, so I will come back to that in future posts, but there are GREAT recipes out there.

All that was left was some sweet potato assembly!

I cut the potatoes in half and split the BBQ chicken between the two potatoes. They would have been great just like this, but I also added a little parmesan cheese and plain Greek yogurt.

Greek yogurt is an awesome substitute for sour cream (you’ll never know the difference!) and mayonnaise. It has a creamy texture and is nice and tangy. I personally don’t care for it plain, but love it as substitutes for these two items.  It also adds a little extra calcium to your diet without anyone noticing.

There are endless possibilities for topping these potatoes. Try a little cheddar cheese or cole slaw instead of the parmesan and Greek yogurt – Unlike your mom told you, play with your food!

Enjoy!