Electic Skillet Cooking-chicken, veggies

I got a 12-in electric skillet for Christmas. Truth be told, I don't know what the hell to do with it. I mean, I just don't get what I can do with it that I can't do with a regular pan on the stove. Yet more proof for the title my blog. Since my mother was SO excited to give it to me, I certainly couldn't take it back, so it was time to put it to the test.

Also-I feel like I need to start eating 'cleaner'. I owe it to my body. I recently figured out that I have some sort of acute lactose intolerance, which blows, but I think I need to take it even further. I'll be trying to load the veggies into every meal, eat leaner meats (mostly chicken), and limited the gluten. Back to good 'ol quinoa!

Ok, so I started with making some quinoa (in a regular pot). The usual: 1 part quinoa, 2 parts chicken stock or water (I used half low sodium stock, half water, but it came out a little bland).


4pcs chicken tender-sized chicken breasts
4 bok choy
4 broccoli


I put the electric skillet on low-medium, threw in some "buttery spread" (ugh. I miss butter) and 3 cloves of sliced garlic. Let the garlic get nice and soft/light brown. Then I threw in 4 bok choys (pieces of bok choy?) and 4 stalks of broccoli, stems and all. I put some low sodium broth and white in, enough to cover the bottom of the skillet, and let it simmer. I covered it, so it would steam the veggies. Make sure to flip them every once in a while. When both types of veggies were soft enough for a fork to easily go through, I took them out and put the chicken in. There should still be some 'juices' left in the pan to cook the chicken in.

Cook for a few mins on each side, making sure it's cooked all the way through. Throw it all together and you've got yourself a pretty damn healthy meal! Mine came out a little bland. I always feel like regular broth is too salty, and low sodium isn't salty enough. And I totally suck at seasoning stuff!! I'll have to work on all that...

I'm still not totally convinced that I couldn't just do all that in a pan on the stove, but the skillet worked well enough. Moms told me that it would be good to make stuff with 'sauces' in, so I'll have to try that next.

Stir Fry Question

Ok. This is going to make me look like even more of an idiot than I already am (do?)...so I got this for Christmas, to my utter joy and delight (oh wow I accidentally spent like an hour on that site...hoping...dreaming...wishing...). I don't cook a whole lot, but I like cooking toys and nice pots and such. One nice big knife? Sweet. One nice pot/wok? Awesome. Add a flat wooden spoon and I'm basically set. Don't ask me why Calphalon is a major turn on to me, but I loooove it way more than the cheap-o pots I had throughout college. Even though I don't think I've ever noticed any actual difference as far as cooking goes.

I use that stupid wok for everything now, appropriate or not. Do my roommates have a full set of Calphalon pots and pans? Yes. Do I still use mine every chance I can get even if it's TOTALLY the wrong type/size out of sheer delight in owning my own single piece of Calphalon goodness? Yes. Who uses a giant wok on an electric stovetop even though the point of it is to heat up the sides which, I would imagine, is 1000x more effective on a gas stove? Me. I even used it to make ginger/carrot/potato soup in. Who makes freakin SOUP in a giant wok?! Me. And, no, I didn't post that recipe because I think I put like 45x more ginger in it than I was supposed to and, well, it wasn't very good. Good thing I made like 3 gallons of it. Damn it. Oh wow, kinda got way off topic there. Wasn't planning on this being a "wok this way" post (HAHAHAHA!! I'm hilarious...right?...no?...damn). Oops.

ANYWAYS, my lovely wok was part of an "Asian set" and came with stir fry sauce. Random, but ok. Here's my probably stupid question: do you cook things in stir fry sauce or do you put the sauce on after it's fried and stirred? Let's discuss, my 1.5 readers!