Slow Cooker Tex-Mex Chicken

This recipe was one of the first meals we made in the slow cooker in our pre-blogging days. We made it tonight & decided we needed to add it to the blog.

Ingredients:

1 pound Boneless skinless chicken breast cut into 1 inch wide strips

2 tablespoons Taco seasoning mix (1/2 packet)

3 tablespoons Flour

1 Green pepper cut into 1 inch wide strips

1 Red pepper cut into 1 inch wide strips

1/4 cup Sugar

1 cup Frozen corn

1 1/2 cups Salsa

1/4 cup Water

1 cup Mexican style shredded cheese

2 cups Rice cooked

Preparation:

1. Stir together chicken with seasoning mix and flour in slow cooker.
2. Stir in all remaining ingredients except the cheese.
3. Cover with lid.
4. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.
5. Stir just before serving.
6. Top with cheese.
7. Serve 1 1/2 cups chicken over 1/2 cup of rice.
8. Garnish with sliced green onions and chopped cilantro if desired.

What we did differently:

1. We doubled the recipe, to better fit in our 5 quart slow cooker, and also to allow for a goodly amount of leftovers.
2. We used bulk Splenda instead of regular sugar.
3. We used 3 whole peppers (green, red & orange) which turned out to be the perfect amount when doubling the recipe.
4. For salsa, we chose the Kroger Private Selection Chipotle Salsa which gave a nice kick to the dish.
5. Kroger has a new Habanero blend in their shredded cheese selection, so we used that for the Mexican-style cheese - yummy!

Crockpot Swiss Chicken

We had picked up a 2.5 lb bag of frozen chicken breasts on sale at Kroger, so we were looking for an easy recipe to make use of them. Ed found this one using the crockpot app on his iPad.

Ingredients:

6 boneless chicken breast halves, skin removed

6 slices Swiss cheese

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2 cups stuffing mix

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted

Preparation:

1. Wash chicken pieces and pat dry.

2. Lightly grease slow cooker or spray with cooking spray.

3. Place chicken breasts in slow cooker.

4. Top with the Swiss cheese.

5. Spoon soup over cheese, then sprinkle with stuffing mix.

6. Drizzle melted butter over stuffing mix.

7. Cook on low 6-7 hours or on high 3 - 3.5 hours. Serves 6

What We Did Differently:

1. Our bag of chicken contained 7 chicken breasts, so we just threw in the 7th breast so we wouldn't have an extra.

2. The normal box of stuffing mix contains approx. 3 cups of mix, so again, rather than have leftover, we used the entire box (we used Kroger brand cornbread stuffing mix).

3. Because of the additional chicken & stuffing, we melted an extra 1/2 stick of butter & added a 2nd can of cream of mushroom soup, just to ensure there would be plenty of liquid during cooking.

4. Even with the extra ingredients, we found that the dish was ready at the 6 hr, 15 min mark while cooking on low.

5. We served green beans as a side veggie and I enjoyed a Highland Kashmir IPA to drink & it was the perfect complement to the dish.

Our Impression:

We found the Swiss cheese flavor was very subtle & definitely did not overpower the dish. The chicken was very tender & easy to flake upon serving. The mushroom soup & cornbread stuffing blended together nicely as far as flavor. We're thinking that next time we will top the dish with shredded cheese to add a hint more cheesiness...because we like cheese.