Football Season and New Recipes

It is September, which means the beginning of the fall semester and the start of college football. Our first football game was actually in late August, but it was an away game at South Carolina. This past weekend was our first home game at the newly half-renovated Kyle Field. The stadium, one season into its 450 million dollar renovation, is beautiful... and it's only going to get bigger and better.

Amazing photo courtesy of Jacob's fab photography skills.

On Saturday, the Aggies played Lamar University and, as you can imagine, it was a beat down. The Aggies won with a whopping score of 73-3! Can I get a "Whoop"?! We only had to wait through a two hour and fifteen minute weather delay before the game started. Worth it... totally worth it! The stadium was beautiful and Jacob and I had a great time. The only downside was climbing up to row 35 of section 516- this season is going to be rough! 

 A new semester also means trying some new recipes. As always, I've been busy on Pinterest, searching for fun new recipes. And who doesn't love cooking something new?

I've been eyeing a few different quinoa recipes, but really curious about what the hell quinoa actually is. So, just like a typical millennial... I Googled.

Random facts about quinoa according to Google:

• it's a seed and not a grain
• closely related to spinach and tumbleweed
• it's gluten free
• it's high in protein 
• it can be a good source of omega-3 fatty acids
• it's both nutty and grainy in flavor 
• there's a film on the outside that if you don't wash off before preparing, will make the cooked quinoa soapy tasting
• white, black, and red variations of quinoa exist

Weirdest fact about the food? The way it's pronounced. There's no reason that the word "quinoa" should be pronounced "keen-wah." Absolutely no reason. Nonetheless, I wanted to give a recipe a try. I love crock pot recipes too, so this one was kind of a natural fit. I threw all the ingredients in the crock pot on my lunch break and let it cook on low until I got home from work, when I cranked it up to high until the chicken easily tore apart. 

Slow Cooker Quinoa Chicken Chili

Makes enough to feed about 8 people. So much chili! We had lots of leftovers!

Ingredients

1 cup of quinoa (don't forget to rinse!)

1 large can (28oz.) diced tomatoes

1 can (14oz.) black beans (drained and rinsed)

1 can rotel

1 can corn (rinsed)

2 chicken breasts (frozen or thawed are okay) 

1 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/2 tsp chili powder

Prep

1) Throw everything in the crock pot. Easy, right?

2) Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4-7. 

3) Use two forks to shred the chicken. Stir all ingredients together. 

4) Top with cheese, avocado, sour cream... or anything else that sounds delicious. 

The original blogger of the recipe said that leftovers thicken up by day two and you can put it in a tortilla for tacos. Yum!