#8 Moroccan Chicken Thighs, with Raisin-and-Carrot Couscous

Do you ever get into these single-minded, driven, obsessed cleaning and de-cluttering mental "zones"? 

I do. 

It's a powerful instinct, like "nesting", and it comes, without fail, every year, the last two weeks of August, and then again in January.  It's like I just can't live another minute without scrubbing down that door between the house and garage...?  Somehow it hasn't bothered me all summer...but today, it simply MUST be done.

So that's where my head is right now.  I just detailed the entry between my garage and house...I even scrubbed and vacuumed out the air vent in that space.  Threw out and donated stuff, and scrubbed up the baseboards.  Now I just want to stand in that part of the house and bask in the glow of it!

Since I'll be busy whirling through the house and garage like a rabid, feral, Tasmanian Devil the next two weeks, I'm going to try to target recipes that are quicker prep, as well as seasonal, in terms of the produce used.

"Moroccan Chicken Thighs, with Raisin-and-Carrot Couscous" from  Healthy Slow Cooker Cookbook by American Heart Association.

When I googled the recipe name and book title, I found that google books has a page sample up on the internet with permission from Random House, but some of the words are cut-and-paste looking, however you can get the drift.

Instead of couscous (which has gluten), I used quinoa (which is gluten-free), but I did include the raisins and carrots, because I thought they were the perfect pairing to complement this chicken.  The family liked the raisin and carrot part, but were not big on the quinoa.

Instead of 4 bone-in chicken thighs, I used 9 boneless, skinless thighs, because that's what I happened to have, although I think the bone-in type would impart even more flavor and moisture.

The recipe says to brown the thighs in a non-stick pan.  I used a stainless steel pan.  I get better browning with stainless, but of course you need a nice coating of fat/oil, and you must wait for the meat to self-release...don't try to pry it up before it's ready to release or you'll get shreds of meat all over your pan and mess up your lovely browning process.

The recipe calls for water, but I had some chicken stock handy, so I used that to deglaze the pan.  Don't neglect this step, because the lovely brown bits all over the bottom of your pan is where the flavor is.

This dish smells rich, warm, and spicy-sweet as you cook it.  It reminded me of molasses cookies, or gingerbread.  A family member came into the kitchen and said, "it smells like you are making apple crisp".

I was quickly running out of afternoon, so I went ahead and used the "high" option, 2-3 hours.  I went in with a pair of tongs after 1 hr. and shifted all the pieces of chicken around, so they would cook evenly.  Ultimately, my 9 boneless pieces took  1 1/2 hours.

The chicken was nice and tender and moist, and delicious.  It was neither "hot" nor "sweet", as I expected it to be, but was just flavorfully seasoned. 

Now, I have a very cold constitution, so I like warming foods, and this dish was very warming.  It actually felt hot in my tummy, like a strong ginger tea.  It was fairly spicy, even for me.  I did have some heartburn after eating it.  So if you are prone to heartburn, or sensitive to spicy foods, you might want to consider that, and either reduce the spices or avoid this one altogether .