The crockpot was used once again this past weekend and for a recipe that came out pretty darn delicious!
I was perusing MomsWhoThink.com and stumbled across a few slow cooker recipes I wanted to try. I really want to try the homemade sloppy joe's but we don't have ground beef (or ground chicken) in the house right now. All we have is regular chicken, so I had to work with that.
I found this recipe for Cowboy Chicken, and it looked interesting - minus the black beans of course. I hate beans. My husband likes them, but he will have to make his own dishes on his own time! I tried to think of a substitute for the beans, maybe peas or something, but just ultimately decided to go without.
The one thing that bothered me about this recipe was that 30 minutes before you finish cooking, you had to put more ingredients into the crockpot. This is actually a conversation I had with my friend Laurie just a week ago. She wants to try more recipes from a slow cooker recipe book I bought her but a lot of them require ingredients to be added throughout the cooking time. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of "set and forget" while you are at work?
So I had that issue with this recipe. Now, I am home on Mondays - I don't work that day - but I had a doctor's appointment and I didn't know how long I would be there. I usually have to reduce the cooking time for my slow cooker recipes as well, because I only make half the recipes. So I decided to wait until after my 2 pm appointment was done to get this recipe going and we would just eat it the next day. It's a good thing I waited because my appointment took an hour longer than anticipated! So my food would have cooked longer and then I still would have had to add in those other ingredients and cook it for another half hour. I finally finished around 9 that night. No big deal - like I said, we planned to eat it the next night after work. But the recipes that are totally "set and forget" are definitely much easier.
This recipe was also the first time I made my own pulled chicken! I have never done this before so I was proud of myself for shredding the chicken well.
I used a fruity salsa instead of a spicy one since I only like the fruity salsas. I thought the recipe was great, my husband liked it too but I could tell he was craving more spice in the recipe, either by using a spicier salsa or adding some green chilies or something like that. You could do that if you wanted!
We also topped our dishes with some shredded cheddar, which wasn't in the original recipe. I think it added a little something.
So this is a keeper, and I will probably make some to freeze before the baby arrives.
And now, the recipe: (full recipe posted, but I halved it as usual)
Ingredients:
4-6 chicken breasts
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoons Dijon Mustard (I actually used spicy mustard because we were out of dijon!)
2 cups salsa (any type)
1 (15 ounce) can corn, drained
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed (I did not use)
½ cup sour cream (plus extra for serving)
Brown rice (for serving)
* Shredded cheddar cheese (my addition for serving!)
Directions:
Place chicken in a greased slow cooker.
In medium bowl mix brown sugar, mustard, and salsa.
Pour mixture over chicken. Add water to cover chicken, if needed. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4 hours.
With 30 minutes of cook time remaining remove the lid and shred the chicken using two forks.
Add the beans, corn, and sour cream to the slow cooker and mix together with the chicken. Replace lid and cook for remaining 30 minutes.
Serve over rice with sour cream (and cheese!).
Enjoy!
