Crockpot Mexican Chicken

From time to time, I get a craving for chicken tacos. Usually when we have taco night at my house, I cook up a pound of ground beef (for Dylan) and a pound of ground turkey (for me). That's good and all, but sometimes what I really want is a chicken taco. For some reason, I love fresh ingredients on my chicken tacos, so that's even more of a plus. But, alas, I have never really found a really good way to make taco-seasoned chicken. I did it really well once, but I used canned chicken, and found it more difficult to do with fresh chicken breasts.

So, imagine my amazement when, one day, I was surfing on Pinterest and found a recipe for chicken tacos. It only used three ingredients and was cooked in the crockpot. I followed the link and it lead me here. I decided to put it on my constantly-growing "cook this" list. Let, lemme give you the recipe and then I'll talk more about it. :)

Ingredients

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 envelope of taco seasoning
• 1 16 oz jar of salsa

Directions
Dump everything into a crock pot and give it a little stir to blend the seasoning with the salsa. Cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or on low for 6 to 8 hours. When done, the chicken should shred easily when stirred with a fork.


My Take
Oh. My. Goodness. These were soooo easy and soooo amazing. I actually eyeballed everything as I only had 3 (albeit quite large) chicken breasts. That and I have one of those large taco seasoning jars, so I never buy the packets. I cooked it on low for 5 hours and then shredded the chicken and let it cook for another hour, letting the flavoring get in the chicken really well.


I actually just finished off 2 tacos and am thinking of going back for seconds. I may also make some tortilla soup with the leftovers or maybe make my Mexican casserole again but this time with chicken! Oh the possibilities! I haven't used my crockpot that much in the past, but that is totally going to change. :)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go stuff my face with more of this wonderful stuff.

Southwest Chicken Wrap and Baby Update

Okay, so this "recipe" is really quick and easy to make. Sorry that I don't have exact measurements for some of the ingredients, but they are really up to taste. (You'll see what I mean when I get there) So first, the recipe, then, the gabbing. :)

Ingredients

• 1 can of canned chicken breast
• 1 can of corn
• 1 can of black beans, no sodium added
• Taco seasoning
• Fresh cilantro, finally chopped

Directions
Put everything in a bowl and mix together, adding taco seasoning and cilantro to taste.

My Take
Well, that was easy, wasn't it? And it's pretty healthy as well. If you're worried about adding too much taco seasoning, just start with a little bit at a time, mixing well and then doing a taste test. I personally like quite a bit of the flavor, so I add a good bit. As for the cilantro, I would err on the side of too little rather than too much. Cilantro, in my opinion, has a very strong taste, so you probably don't want to add too much, unless you really love the flavor it brings.

The best way to eat this, again, in my opinion, is to heat up the mixture and then serve it in a flour tortilla with sour cream on top. My mom, on the other hand, eats it cold. Either way works since the canned chicken is already cooked. You can probably come up with other toppings that would be delicious with it. Tell me about them!


Baby Lucy!
Today marks my halfway point in my pregnancy. It's crazy thinking that I'm already this far along. At this point, I'm getting really anxious about becoming a mother. I know that before I found out I was pregnant I was really wanting a child, but now I'm terrified that I don't have what it takes. Probably most first time mothers go through this stage of anxiety, but I dunno....sometimes you feel like you're the only one going through something. Selfishness, I guess.

She's been moving around a lot recently, more so tonight. Guess that's another thing I have to get use to. It's only going to get worse as she grows. lol

But, with all this anxiety, there also comes a sense of happiness and joy. Yes, it's coming from the fact that in about 20 weeks I'm going to have a baby girl, but it's also coming from the fact that I'm hoping to be a (mostly) stay-at-home mom. Because of finances and the like, I'll have to work some, but I'm hoping it'll only be 15 hours a week (3 hours a day, Mon-Fri). That's what my job is technically suppose to be, but I get more hours since I work out on the sales floor as well. This has me really excited 'cause my whole career aspiration right now is to be like Mrs. Beaver from Leave it to Beaver. I dunno, I've just always had this fantasy with me staying at home and raising the kids and cooking things from scratch. *sighs* How great would that be. What would make it even more amazing is if the house would just clean itself. lol.

Well, I'm going to call it a night, on the blogging front anyways. I think my next post is going to be showing my geekiness and be about video games. Let's see how many people I can scare away from my blog, shall we? lol.

Beef Enchiladas

I love this recipe. If I could eat these every night, I would. Of course, I probably say that about a lot of things, but trust me, these are delicious. I think the thing I love most about these is that you make the enchilada sauce. It's not something you just get out of a can and pour over the top of the enchiladas. Not saying anything is wrong with that, but I like being able to control the flavoring. Must be a control issue......Anywho, onto the recipe!

Ingredients

• 1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef
• 1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (4 oz)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh or 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 can (4.5 oz) chopped green chiles, drained
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
• 8 corn tortillas (5 or 6 inches)
• Shredded cheese, sour cream, and chopped onions, if desired (for topping)

Directions

• Heat oven to 350°F 
• In 10-inch skillet, cook beef over medium heat 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until brown; drain. Stir in onion, sour cream, 1 cup cheese, the parsley and pepper. Cover and remove from heat.
• In 2-quart saucepan, heat bell pepper, water, chili powder, oregano, cumin, chiles, garlic and tomato sauce to boiling, stirring occasionally; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered 5 minutes. Pour into ungreased 9-inch pie plate.
• Dip each tortilla into sauce in pie plate to coat both sides. Spoon about 1/4 cup beef mixture onto each tortilla; roll tortilla around filling. Place seam side down in ungreased 11x7-inch glass baking dish. Pour remaining suace over enchiladas.
• Bake uncovered about 20 minutes or until bubbly. Garnish with shredded cheese, sour cream, and chopped onion.

My Take

Okay, so if you read my Cafe Strawn blog, then you'll know Dylan and I are extremely picky eaters. So, how do I even stand to look at this recipe with all the onions and peppers and chiles? Simple, I don't use them! And honestly, it turns out perfectly for us. I'm sure that if you liked those kinds of things then it would still work great for you, but honestly, we wouldn't eat it, so no point in making something we wouldn't eat!

I've made these things about 3 times and this last time I doubled the sauce part, as when I got to the part where you pour the remaining sauce over the enchiladas, I barely had anything left and they turned out a bit too dry for my tastes. But now this time, it seemed I had too much sauce, as the enchiladas didn't crisp up as much as I would have liked them to. I think I'll have to tinker with it a bit more to find the balance that I like texture-wise.

One final thing that I tweaked about this recipe was that I put cheese on top of the enchiladas about 5 minutes before they were done cooking. Gotta have my cheese!

So there ya have it, a beef enchilada recipe where you get to make your own enchilada sauce. If you find yourself making this in the future, comment and lemme know how it turned out. Let me know of any changes that you made and what worked and what didn't work.

Happy Cooking! :)