chili chicken

Recently I’ve been noticing that 5pm is creeping up on me a lot quicker than it used to. As much I plan menus and set up what we’re going to eat for the week when I grocery shop, I really felt I should incorporate more crock-pot meals during the week to help the days run smoother. Plus, I just love crock-pot dinners. That simple. There’s nothing better than coming home to the smell of heaven after a long day. It’s really a treat. I started looking up crock-pot recipes and cookbooks and found The Best Slow Cooker Recipes + Meals Cookbook – Over a 100 Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes (how SEO smart is that title, huh?). My son loves chili so I tried out their Chili Chicken recipe with a few variations, and we really enjoyed it. Here’s their recipe with my changes in parenthesis.

Ingredients:
Three chicken breasts, cut into pieces (I used organic chicken)
1 cup of onion, chopped
1 cup of bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp vegetable oil (I used extra virgin Spanish Olive Oil)
2 cans stewed tomatoes, Mexican Style (I stewed the tomatoes myself. Depending on how much sauce you like, I would suggest about 10 medium organic tomatoes)
1 can chili beans (I used 1 can of organic vegetarian chili beans)
2/3 cup picante sauce (see below for picante recipe)
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp salt

Cooking Directions:
Use a skillet to sauté garlic, onion, pepper and chicken in oil. Move them to slow cooker and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Cook this for 6 hours on low heat. Makes 6 servings.

Picante Sauce:
1 can of tomato puree (I used a few of the stewed tomatoes and measured 16 oz in the blender)
1 tbsp white vinegar
1/3 finely chopped onion
3 finely chopped jalapeño peppers (my son thinks you should add more!)
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup water

Cooking Directions:
Combine all the ingredients together and cook on a medium heat. Bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer until it becomes thick. Once thick, remove from heat and let it cool. The recipe book says to put the picante sauce in a jar and ended the directions there for some reason. I added it to the crock-pot and let it cook with the rest of the ingredients. Six hours later, we added avocado and had ourselves a wonderful dinner!