Yesterday, however, I FINALLY cooked something worth eating in my Crock Pot. As I mentioned before, I was not fully on the slow cooker bandwagon. I'm still not sure, but things are looking up. I only made some shredded chicken thighs, but they came out really well so I'm going to share the recipe. I just ate the chicken plain with guacamole on top, but this would be good in tacos or sandwiches.
Shedded chicken:
About 1.5-2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 bottle of beer
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 chipotle pepper
1 TBS tomato paste
1 bay leaf
Salt, pepper, cayenne, cinnamon, paprika, cumin, coriander, chili powder, granulated to taste
I just dumped this all in the crockpot and cooked it on low for 8 hours. It probably sat on warm for about 3 hours after that. When I got home I put the meat in a bowl and shredded it with two forks. It was so easy, it just fell apart. I added a little bit of the sauce back in to keep it moist, but it wasn't very necessary. I think I under seasoned mine a little bit, next time I will definitely add more spice and more salt.
I served this with guacamole and sweet potatoes. For the guac I just mashed up two avocados with the juice of one lime, about two tablespoons of chopped cilantro, one clove of grated garlic and salt and pepper. We eat avocado with dinner fairly often. It is one of the easiest and most delicious sides out there. For the sweet potatoes I heated the oven to 400 degrees, peeled and sliced the tubers, seasoned them with salt, pepper, red pepper flake, fresh thyme leaves, and drizzled them with olive oil. I let them bake for about 20 minutes so they are cooked through and crunchy on the outside. This is my favorite way to make sweet potatoes.
Anyway, here is a picture of my Crock pot success:
I just want to note we have a decent amount of chicken leftover. I made sure to cook extra because I think part of my problem with the slow cooker was that I wasn't putting enough food in it before.
Stumbled across your blog on TheKnot and love your gardening tips! We just started our "urban garden" on our 6x2 ft balcony--can't wait until we have real veggies growing (and yes, the startup costs aren't cheap!)
ReplyDeleteI've been making carne asada in the crock pot and it comes out GREAT. I can eat carne asada tacos all week-we do them with the Cojiga cheese, sour cream, and cole slaw mix (just the shredded cabbage). We basically do this: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/taqueria-style-tacos---carne-asada/ except that I don't always use flank steak (it's not cheap)--last time I used a lean roast (I think it was top round--whatever looks "stringy" like flank steak) and marinate it and just throw it in the crock pot along with two cans of chopped tomatoes. I'm gone long days too and never have any issues with overcooking (just make sure to put enough water or stock so that it covers the meat).