Thinner Thursday #2

Welcome to Thinner Thursday...

All week, I've been second guessing naming Thursdays "Thinner" because I don't want it to seem like I'm obsessed with weight loss.  It really feels like I need to clarify that "thinner" in my mind has been about  down-sizing my life-- commitments, spending, possessions and yes, my waistline. 

To be honest, today was a good day to be "thinner."  My thin-ness was focused on my schedule.  Someone close to me had surgery yesterday [yes, they are recovering just fine], but I knew that a few weeks ago and pretty much cleared my schedule of anything else for today.  It was nice to be able to go to the hospital early and sit with someone who needed me.  At one point, after about 3 hours, I was asked, "Don't you have some place to be?"  And I was able to say, not until 1 pm... I'm just here to be here.  And I wasn't stressed.

Yes, my house is a bit of a crazy mess and I'll have extra work to do in the morning to get ready for my guests.  Yes, I completely could have spent a few hours cleaning my house today.  Yes, it was more important for me to be sitting at the hospital with nothing better to do. No, I wasn't stressed about it.

Why?

Dinner was in the crockpot, kids were at school, hubba-hubba-Hubbie knew where my priority for the day was (and felt it was a priority as well)... That's what a smidgen of planning and acceptance will do for you.  You realize, it's okay to sacrifice your home-peace for the greater good of someone who needs you.  Today, it happened to be a hospital visit, but some days it's something as simple as realizing that you are the one who needs the day of attention.  Shouldn't you have room in your schedule for yourself or someone special when you need/want to?  What stress do you need to "thin out" of your life?

That said... I can't let you go without a recipe.  If you read Saturday's early and late editions, you know about my Caribbean Jerk Seasoning issue.  Imagine my surprise when I picked up a cookbook at the Dollar store called "1001 Crockpot Recipes" and was paging through it and found a crockpot recipe that included Caribbean Jerk Seasoning.  So I had to share my version of it:

3 lb boneless skinless Chicken Thighs

3 Tbsp Caribbean Jerk Seasoning

1 onion, chopped

1/3 c ketchup

1/4 c brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup (4 oz) chicken broth

Spray crockpot with cooking spray, place chicken thighs in the bottom of the crockpot.  Sprinkle chopped onion over it.  Sprinkle Caribbean Jerk Seasoning over all.  In a small bowl, mix ketchup, brown sugar, and chicken broth... pour over chicken in crockpot.  Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours.  Shred chicken in crockpot... place in whole wheat hamburger buns. 

For more flavor, put a couple of shots of Frank's Red Hot sauce on your meat... if you like it spicier, spice it up as much as you like.  The flavor was pretty mild... but it did use the jerk seasoning.  Tee-hee.  Should feed 8 people (ours fed 3 adults and 2 kids several sandwiches each).