Chicken Salad and My Crock Pot

Here's another Pinterest recipe for Chicken in the Crock Pot. This recipe was described as "All Purpose Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken"
I've been wanting to make chicken salad so I thought this would be a good way to cook the chicken prior to making the chicken salad.  I did not plan on shredding the chicken; I wanted to cube it.  It worked fine.

In my true fashion, I didn't have EVERYTHING the recipe called for.  I did not have Onion Powder, so I chopped up about 1/4 onion.  It's amazing that I had a real onion on hand.   I'm working on this, peeps! : )

Assemble and throw in the crock pot, including frozen chicken breast (love frozen!) and I cooked on high for about 4 hours.

The recipe came from Mountain Mama Cooks and here is what her shredded version looks like.

We had chicken breasts for dinner with mashed potatoes and corn on the cob, and I assembled the chicken salad after dinner.  My husband thought the chicken was very tender, but a bit bland.   I don't have a picture of dinner.   

Here's the chicken salad on a whole grain bun with our favorite potato chips. Lays All Natural Potato Chips.  (We call the Tessa Chips after our beloved Golden Retriever Tessa.  More about that later.)  The chicken salad has 2 chicken breasts, 1 cup chopped celery, 1/2 cup green grapes, 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts and about 1 cup mayo.  Hubby thought it was yummy, so the mayo added enough flavor to his taste. 

Here's the recipe from Mountain Mama Cooks:

All Purpose Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken

Ingredients

4 organic, boneless skinless chicken breasts (I did not use organic)

1/2 cup chicken stock

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder (I used 1/4 chopped onion)

1 teaspoon seasoned salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 

Instructions

Place chicken in slow cooker.  Sprinkle chicken breasts with all the spices.  Add chicken stock.  Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours.  Shred chicken with two forks.  Cool completely and if you want to freeze, divide into ziplock baggies.  This makes just about six cups total and I like to divide the shredded chicken into three portions with about two cups each.

It will be fun to switch up the Chicken Salad ingredients a bit with say craisins and almonds.  I saw a recipe on Pinterest for Chicken Salad with apples and cheddar chunks.  That sounds good for fall.  What do you like in your Chicken Salad?

Another Successful Crockpot Recipe-Cheesy Chicken & Rice

We had another successful crock-pot meal last night.  Another Chicken crockpot recipe. From Pinterest.   The original source is  SouthernPlate.com
I love that it is so easy to dump ingredients into the pot  and a few hours later have a tasty meal on the table.
My hubby liked it, had 2 servings, and didn't groan when I said,  "It's a good thing you like it because we'll be eating it again tomorrow!"  I said that in a nice, pleasant tone with a smile.   I know that doesn't always come across in two-dimensional writing. : )

I was concerned because the recipe called for Zatarain's Yellow Rice.   Isn't that the Cajun style stuff with lots of HOT spices?   I'm a wimp when it comes to hot flavorings.   I just don't get why a burning mouth = tastes good.  But I bravely bought it and used it and it was NOT hot. 
I changed the recipe up a little because I used frozen chicken breasts  (I LOVE that!  Open bag and dump!)  and I had frozen corn.   I put the frozen corn in with the frozen chicken at the beginning.   The recipe used canned corn and added it at the end just to warm it up.
I also only used a half onion - just our personal preference. 

It smelled SO GOOD while it was cooking!

Here's Southern Plates' pic of after the chicken is done.   She added the corn, pre-cooked rice, and cheddar cheese. My frozen corn was already in the pot while the chicken cooked.

After all is warmed up, mix it in the crockpot.   The chicken will break easily into smaller chunks.

Yep.  Just as I expected.  It's YELLOW!
The dish turned out YELLOW as I expected because the recipe calls for cream of chicken soup (yellow), Zatarain's Yellow Rice, Corn and Cheddar Cheese.   YELLOW. In the first picture at the top of the page, does it kind of look look like scrambled eggs? Adding the green beans on the side helped balance out the YELLOW.
Here's Southern Plate's finished dish

And mine.  I think I had less chicken and more cheese.

Anyway, it was yummy!

Ingredients

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 large onion, chopped (I use Vidalia)
• 1 -8 ounce box Zatarain's Yellow Rice Mix, cooked according to directions
• 1 cup cheddar cheese
• 1 - 10.5 ounce can cream of chicken soup (regular or fat free)
• 1 -15 ounce can whole kernel corn, drained

Instructions

1. Place chicken in bottom of slow cooker. Scatter chopped onion over top. Spoon cream soup over top of that. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours or on high 3-4 hours. A few minutes before serving, add in cooked rice, corn, and cheese. Stir to combine. Serve hot.

 

Black Bean & Salsa Chicken, the Sequel

Last night for dinner we had Black Bean & Salsa Chicken, a recipe I found on Pinterest from Six Sisters Stuff.  This is the second time I made it and it was just as yummy as the first time.

Get the recipe and read about that here.

  

The first utterance out of my husband's mouth after his first bite was "Mmmmm!"  

You don't know how amazing that was!  

That rarely happens when someone eats my cooking!  

I made a couple of changes from the recipe. I cut the recipe in half as I did the first time since I was only cooking for two. I used frozen chicken breast tenders instead of fresh chicken breasts. I didn't have black beans, I just cleaned out the freezer of left-over half bags of frozen corn and upped the amount of corn to the recipe. I also only cooked it on high for 3 1/2 hours, not 4,  because I started preparations late, and the chicken was done and very tender. I served it over rice because that's what was in the pantry.   So it ended up looking more like the Mexican Haystacks  from Six Sisters.

I guess I should have piled all my fixin's on top of my haystack. I had a deconstructed haystack. See that perfect bite loaded onto the blue chip? 

I planned on using blue corn tortilla chips to dip all this yumminess.  A little chicken, a little corn and rice, a little avocado, a little sour cream, a little black olive.   Mmmmm! But a fork worked better. The first words out of my hubby's mouth BEFORE his first bite were,  "Aren't you going to take a picture?"    He's coming along nicely as a blogger's hubby! ; ) Join me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/AtHomeWithJanSavage 

My New BFF - My Crockpot

I've been trying to cook more because it's healthier and cheaper,  and when you use a crockpot, it doesn't heat up the kitchen. (More about that later.) I know, I know -  News flash, right?!

 

Last night we had a Pinterest recipe -  Slow Cooker Black Bean and Corn Salsa Chicken.   Scroll down for the recipe below.  I'm not the best cook, and it may be because I'm a little ADD.  I get distracted and things get burned or over done.  Sometimes when something is going wrong, and I can tell that it's going wrong, I don't know how to fix it.   Sometimes I don't know it's going wrong until it's way too late.  

Colorful salad from another day.  I'm all about the presentation!  No cooking or crockpot required. 
I need to follow a recipe.  I'm not one of those who can add a pinch of this or that to make something delicious.  I do make substitutions on ingredients sometimes because I don't have what I need, but it's never an exciting adventure waiting to see if it's going to be edible.  Give me a recipe, how much, how long, and what it's supposed to look like when it's done, and I'll do much better!  

Here's my Mom's recipe for Chinese Chicken Casserole.  I'll write about that someday.  Even following her recipe produced a surprise.

And I need more practice, I know.  Right now I'm only cooking for 2 which creates it's own challenges.  I have to divide the recipe and only cook half portions or freeze a half portion.  That's a bit risky!  Pinterest has been good for me in my cooking adventures.  I like to see the finished product so I know what I'm aiming for.  I've had a couple of successes recently, and it does make me look forward to trying more!  You can follow me on Pinterest to see what I'm planning for future dinners, and to see what else I'm up to. 
Here's what we had the other night:

Slow Cooker Black Bean and Corn Salsa Chicken.  As I said, I found it on Pinterest, and it's a Six Sisters recipe.  Have you checked out Six Sisters yet?  They have amazing recipes!  Here is what mine looked like pre-assembly.

I will be working on my photo shoot food design.  I was in a bit of a hurry to snap a pic before my hubby dove in.  He has been laughing at me for taking pictures of our food.  ; )  Are you wondering what those black spots are on the chicken in the right-hand side of the divided dish?  I was when I took the chicken out of the crockpot.  (Oh no!  What did I do THIS time?!)  It's some of the black beans!  Whew!

We added our favorite toppings:  tomatoes, black olives, shredded cheddar cheese, shredded lettuce, avocado (for me), sour cream, salsa.  

 Here is my soft taco.  Notice I had to add some blue corn chips for crunch.  My hubby suggested using large tortillas next time to wrap all the goodness in because these smaller ones allowed  the fillings to escape and it became a bit messy.    Here's the recipe.  I cut quantities in half, and we only consumed half of that.  My hubby doesn't really care for leftovers, so half of the recipe was just about right for us. 
Slow Cooker Black Bean and Corn Salsa Chicken 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

2 cans corn, drained

1 package taco seasoning

4-5 chicken breasts

1 cup salsa

3/4 cup water

Put beans, corn, taco seasoning, and water in crock pot and mix together until seasoning is dissolved. Place chicken breasts on top and spread salsa on chicken. Cook on high for 4 hours. Shred meat and serve however you want (over rice or in a tortilla). Garnish with cheese, sour cream, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and hot sauce.  (I don't like things too spicy, so no hot sauce for us.)

SIx Sisters says:

"This is such an easy freezer meal to make! I just made it with 5 chicken breasts and ate half of it for dinner and froze the other half (in a gallon-sized freezer Ziploc bag) for another night. Make sure you let the food cool before freezing it. On the day that you are ready to eat it, let it thaw and then cook on low in your crock pot for 2-3 hours."

I'll have to try freezing half next time

Cook once, eat twice (or four times for us)!

Six Sisters also has a Slow Cooker Mexican Haystacks recipe where the meat is prepared similarly then served on rice and you can top it with whatever you like.  I guess the pile ends up looking like a haystack. Get that recipe here.

  Let me know if you try the recipe and what you thought!

Happy cooking!