CrockPot Chicken Chow Mein

I'm not quite sure how I stumbled upon the blog A Year of Slow Cooking, but it looks fabulous and I've been wanting to try some new crock pot recipes for a while now. (Perhaps this blog is where I got "The Verdict" from..?) Using our crock pot is pretty much what got Dan and me through the first 6 months of Auggie's life. It's so easy, and by 5pm when the baby is fussy dinner is already ready without any extra preparation. Although, our crock pot kind of sucks and burns our food in one spot every single time. I recently found out that this is not normal and we probably need a new crock pot. (Which means I'll be waiting until the end of the year bonus or tax return time next year. Haha..)

Back to the recipe, today I am making Chicken Chow Mein for dinner. And according to the blog author, Stephanie O'Dea, you can make it vegetarian or use any other kind of meat. Here's the link to her Chow Mein post: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/07/crockpot-chow-mein-recipe.html. I will repeat ingredients and preparation for my own sake, as I ended up doing it, below.

Ingredients

• 1-2 lbs chicken breast (or meat of your choice)
• 2 c water 
• 2 chopped onions
• 2-3 c chopped celery

• 1/4 c cornstarch
• 1/4 c soy sauce
• 3 tbsp molasses 
• 1 can (16 oz) baby corn, drained 
• 1 can (6.5 oz) bamboo shoots, drained 
• 1 c bean sprouts 
• 1 chopped red bell pepper

• salt and pepper to taste 
• olive oil 
• spaghetti (we use whole-grain wheat) or chow mein noodles

Preparation 
Put chicken in crock pot, add water, chopped onions, and chopped celery. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours, or on high for 4. My actual cooking time winded up being a little less than 3.5 hours on high, and it was plenty sufficient. (Btw, chicken can go in frozen.) After cooking, shred chicken with forks.

In a bowl, mix cornstarch, soy sauce, and molasses until there are no clumps. Add bell pepper, baby corn, bamboo shoots, and sprouts to crock pot. Stir in cornstarch mixture.

Cover and cook on high for approximately 1 hour.

Cook pasta according to directions until al dente. Set aside.

Heat oil on high in frying pan with salt and pepper. Add spaghetti noodles and toss until a little crust appears on some noodles.

Serve chow mein on noodles.

The Verdict: Good, and a Repeat with Adjustments
While it was an easy, healthy meal with whole-grain spaghetti, chicken for protein, and a bunch of veggies, it seemed to lack any real flavor–which is a problem. This may be due to the fact that I was over a tablespoon short of the 1/4 c of soy sauce (and I used a low-sodium soy sauce at that), but I also think that minced garlic and definitely 2 onions as opposed to the 1 that I used would help.

A quick 'chow mein' search on epicurious.com tells me that the following ingredients would likely jazz up the flavor of this recipe to make it worth trying again:

• fresh ginger
• toasted sesame seed oil
• Chinese rice-wine or medium-dry Sherry
• oyster sauce
• scallions
• garlic
• chicken broth instead of water
• and perhaps some shiitake mushrooms, but that's for you readers out there, because Dan would not appreciate the addition of any mushrooms