Slow cooker WIN!
I’m somewhat cursed when it comes to slow cookers.
I say that because the first and only time I used one, years ago, I didn’t follow a recipe and the meal turned out somewhat lacklustre. Chicken was dried, sauce was gross and it looked foul. The bf was happy enough with it (ah the early days of dating), but I made him go and get fish and chips anyway. Though I think I sent him off to work with some the next day. I think it went in the bin. Fair enough.
Cut forward to two years later and with a recipe in hand – slow cooker success!
Through the glorious wonders of pinterest, I have multiple recipes on my ‘to make’ list, including a few slow cooker ones. I’d hesitated in following through with any because of my previous experience, but I knew this would happen, so on the day of new year’s resolutions I set myself the goal of making three slow cooker meals this year. Not heaps, but enough to test out a few and see how bad this curse is.
The weather last week was freezing (yes, by Auckland standards) and so on Sunday the slow cooker came out. Talk about easiest dinner ever! Oh boy. Especially great was when we ventured out to see the supermoon and came back into a house smelling great with dinner ready to go! Slow cooker, I think i’m falling for you.
The meal. It was slow cooker chicken taco chilli made by this lady. My local supermarket didn’t have all the necessary ingredients (mainly plain black beans) so I made a few on the spot decisions and made substitutions, which are what’s shown below. I’m not quite sure about how low fat this recipe is (there’s too much yum for it to be healthy, surely?), but I’d go out on a limb and say it’s better for you than a lot of other things you could be eating. Check out her other recipes while you’re there, there are quite a few and they all look delish!
Slow cooker chicken taco chilli
1 onion, chopped
1 420g can kidney beans
1 420g-ish can black beans in chilli sauce
1 200g can tomato sauce
1 420g-ish can diced tomatoes
1 420g-ish can diced tomatoes in chilli
280g frozen corn
1 packet taco seasoning
1 T cumin
1 T chilli powder
680g chicken breast - skinless and boneless
Warm up your slow cooker! Mine needs 20 minutes on high before you use it. Combine everything except the chicken in the slow cooker.
Plonk the chicken on top. Cook for 10 hours on low, or 6 hours on high. Stir half way through. Half an hour before serving, take the chicken out and shred. Put back in the slow cooker, stir through.
Serve with rice and topped with cheese and sour cream!
The original recipe says you can get 10 servings out of it. We had HUGE servings for dinner and lunch, and froze another few containers which we’ll probably get four servings out of. In reality, we had too much rice and our dinner and lunches could have been split in half, so I’d say the recipe gets you about 12 modest servings. The bf used a tortilla to scoop up the chilli too.
The original recipe also called for (optional) chilli peppers and 1/4 cup coriander.
