BBQ Chicken Pumkin Improvisational Stew

I will post the recipe I read for slow cooker BBQ sandwiches and here and how I reinterpreted and riffed off of it.

The original recipe I read was from All You June 2011
slow-cooker-barbecue-chicken

Ingredients

24 ounces boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup barbecue sauce
1/4 cup reduced-fat Italian dressing
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons low-sodium chicken broth
Preparation

1. Put chicken in slow cooker. In a bowl, combine barbecue sauce, dressing, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.
2. Remove chicken to a cutting board and shred with 2 forks. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch and chicken broth. Stir into sauce in slow cooker, cover and cook until sauce is thickened and heated through, 5 to 10 minutes. Return chicken to cooker, stir, cover and continue cooking on low for 45 minutes. Serve chicken on whole-grain buns, over brown rice or with baked potatoes if you like.
All You
JUNE 2011

But I reinterpreted it according to my whims and it evolved into a pumpkin curry stew.

As my pal Jean the bookseller says "All of cooking is a story".

What I used: I used things in my kitchen that need using up! I kept tasting along the way.

I started with a bunch of frozen skinned boneless chicken breasts that were in my freezer. I put them in my cooker (frozen) with a little water and half a bottle of cheap BBQ sauce. I have never bought or used BBQ sauce before. They had a big bottle at Family Dollar for a buck 25. I opened some leftover pumpkin puree and threw it in It seemed like the right thing so I opened another whole can of pumpkin and threw that in. I added some cheap port wine skipping the sugar in the recipe. I think I was fleshing out the BBQ sauce so it would have some sideways flavor (body) and not just pointy (spicy). Also it's Autumn and pumpkin is great. Then I added olive oil and red wine vinegar in place of Italian dressing in the recipe along with basil oregano bay leaves and garlic. I put a whole bulb of garlic in my gigantic spice ball so I didn't have to peel it. I added chili powder, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. I added freshly grated ginger, whole pimento-stuffed green olives. I spotted 4 small onions in my kitchen hanging in a wire basket and so I chopped them in half and peeled them and tossed them in. I added a fist-full of dried cranberries, for sweetness and three Macintosh apples that needed to be used. I didn't peel the apples but I cored and quartered them. Then I tasted it again and added orange juice to cut the sweet a bit and add a fruity tartness. It simmered at 250 for hours. I took out the spice ball and squeezed the mushy contents of the garlic cloves into the stew, discarding the paper outer layers. It was delicious and we ate it on top of warm brown rice.


My list of ingredients tallied up:

chicken breasts
water
cheap port
barbecue sauce
olive oil
wine vinegar
oregano
kosher salt
bay leaves a friend grew
pumpkin puree
chili powder
cayenne pepper
Worcestershire sauce
freshly ground black pepper
fresh garlic whole (lowered into the pot in a spice ball the size of a lime)
whole green olives stuffed with pimentos
fresh basil leaves a friend grew
freshly grated ginger
peeled white onions chopped in half
dried cranberries
a few chopped mealy Macintosh apples
orange juice

Everything simmered in my crock pot with the glass lid on, for hours at at 250 degrees.


I cooked a pot of brown rice in my little heart-shaped red iron pot to go with the stew. The rice was a gift. I always ask for grains, or cheap edible delights for Christmas.