Slow-Cooker Chicken with Fennel, White Wine and Black Olives for Breakfast Television (Plus Malaysian cooking classes and Montreal-made salads from Ma Vitrine Bio)

If you missed my segment on BT Montreal this morning, I was talking about ways to eat healthier, which has nothing to do with endless kale and everything to do with slow-cooker chicken, Malaysian cooking classes and pop-up dinners and shake-and-eat organic grocery store salads from Quebec company Ma Vitrine Bio. Here’s the link.

Malaysian cooking classes and pop-up dinners

Nantha Kumar is a Malaysian chef who hosts noodle, curry and seafood cooking classes.

Cooking Classes: January 15, 2017 – Noodles; Jan. 16 – Curry; Jan. 17 – Seafood

Classes are from 6-8:30pm, cost $100 and you get a full meal plus sauces to take home. They’re vegetarian and pescatarian friendly and he can adapt for gluten free participants too.

Pop-up Dinners – Jan 20 and 25
Dinners are huge feasts that include any and everything from Thai tom yam soup, green papaya and mango salad, to mee goreng noodles, steamed fish in banana leaves, chicken rending curry, vegetable potato massaman curry, dahl lentils, turmeric rice and dessert.

Where: La Centrale Culinaire at 5334 de Gaspé

You can find the menus and reserve tickets on the Nantha’s Kitchen Facebook page.

MaVitrine Bio Salads

When you’re hungry and cold, your first thought might be to pick up some fries or a burger or something deep-fried and heavy. So you think you’re being really virtuous by buying a salad at the grocery store, right? But some of those pre-made salads are full of processed cheeses and meats with tons of sodium and saturated fat and preservatives. Ma Vitrine Bio is a local company that makes gorgeous, fresh, layered salads-in-a-jar that are available in IGAs, Rachelle-Béry, Tau and Avril supermarkets. They come with the dressing inside and include Mexican, Thai and Mediterranean flavours. The maki jar (my personal favourite) contains 16 g of protein from tempeh with rice vermicelli, shredded carrots, daikon, lettuce and a maple-mint and apple cider vinegar-based peanut sauce. It’s low sodium, low calorie (420) and contains 330% of your daily Vitamin A!

 

RECIPE

Slow-cooker chicken with fennel, white wine and black olives

2 tsp oil
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 sliced bulb fennel, core removed
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
3 tbsp chopped black olives

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet or pot over medium-high heat. Sear the chicken for 1 minute on each side, just to give it some colour. You’ll have to work in batches to do this, but you shouldn’t need to add more oil.
2. Remove the chicken from the pot and add the fennel. Stir-fry for 1 minute, then return the chicken to the pot and pour over the white wine. Stir and add the chicken broth and olives.
3. Bring to a boil and transfer to the slow-cooker. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.
4. Garnish with parsley or grapes or whatever you like. Serve with rice or potatoes.

 

 

I love slow-cookers, especially in winter, because the preparation is usually really easy, they cook all day and you don’t do a thing and then you come home and your home smells amazing and dinner is ready and hot. I also love that you’re not heating up something frozen or pre-made that’s really high in sodium, bad cholesterol and saturated fat. It’s also cheaper and often healthier than a restaurant because you know what you put in.

SLOW-COOKER TIPS

1. Remove the skin because it doesn’t crisp in the slow-cooker and just adds tons of fat, but use chicken thighs for more flavour and to make sure the meat doesn’t get dry.
2. Chop your olives smaller so you get a little with more bites instead of having some under-salted mouthfuls and some over salted mouthfuls – you’ll end up using fewer olives this way, too, which saves money and fat, without compromising flavour.
3. Sear your meat in a skillet first if you have time to give it some texture and colour on the outside, or add it directly to the slow-cooker if you really don’t have time.
4. Follow a trusted recipe. My favourite slow-cooker cookbook is Judith Finlayson’s bestselling The Healthy Slow Cooker: More than 100 Dishes for Health and Wellness. She also has a ton of her recipes online, including my all-time favourite Santa Fe Sweet potato soup recipe.

Happy eating!