Easy Crockpot Salsa Chicken

Ingredients

2.5 lbs chicken breasts

1.5 C of salsa

2 limes

2 tbs chili powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

salt and pepper

Add the chicken, salsa, juice of both limes, and chili powder to the slow cooker.  Place the lime halves in.  (We did not do this.)  Cook on low for 8 hours.  When it is done cooking, pull out and discard the limes, shred the chicken, and add the other seasonings.  Set the cooker to warm and continue cooking 30 more minutes.

I added the seasonings in the first step and did not do the additional 30 minutes on warm.

Our review

This was great as a burrito stuffing with lettuce, salsa, cheese, and guacamole.  I was surprised that the next day it didn't taste as good when it was reheated.  It wasn't bad, but it tasted more bland than the night before.  Perhaps it's because the next day I didn't add guacamole and salsa.

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Philly Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 large sweet onion, sliced

2 green bell peppers, sliced

3 chicken breasts, sliced

2 tbs Dale's Steak Seasoning ***

salt and pepper

sliced Mozzarella cheese

Hoagie rolls

Add the onions, peppers, chicken, steak seasoning, salt, and pepper to a slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.  Serve on hoagie rolls with a slice of cheese on top.

*** I could not find this seasoning, and while I was going to look in other stores or create a "copy cat recipe" I ran out of time and ended up adding asian BBQ sauce that I had in the fridge.

Our review

It could be blamed on the seasoning, but I wasn't totally impressed.  It tasted fine, but definitely not like a Philly Chicken sandwich.  In fact, don't those usually have chicken cubed pieces?  Anyway, I would try it again with some tweaks on the seasoning, but I'm not in any rush.

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Cafe Rio's Sweet Pork Barbacoa

Holy cow this was good.

So I was looking online for a recipe like Cafe Rio's Pork Barbacoa because the salad they have is really good, and I found one.  I had to adjust it slightly, really I just had to adjust the measurements and I had to come to terms with using soda since I haven't had soda in over 17 years.  I'd like to try to find a way to do this again without the soda, if that's possible.

Ingredients

2 lbs pork (okay so maybe I used 5ish pounds of Wegmans' bone in pork shoulder blade roast $1.29 a pound)!

2 cans of coke - not diet (okay so maybe I used two bottles)

1 and 1/2 cups of brown sugar

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1/4 c water

1 four-ounce can diced green chilies 

1 10 or 14 ounce can enchilada sauce (See below)

Okay so this recipe has two steps.  Step one is to marinate the pork.  Mix 1/2 cup of the brown sugar and 1 can of Coke and then marinate it with the pork.  You can marinate it for a few hours or overnight, I did it overnight.  Also, since I used a bottle of Coke I poured in about 2/3 of the bottle.  I put all of this in the crockpot.

Step two is the next day.  Drain the liquid from the crock pot and then pour 1/2 a can of Coke (I did about 1/3 a bottle), water, and garlic salt into the crock pot and cook for 3-4 hours on high.  I did 4 hours and it was fine.  

Pull the pork out and shred the meat.  Again, I cheated and just cut it into chunks.  Empty the crock pot juices and put the pork back in.  In a bowl or blender (I used a blender) mix the other half of the can of Coke (I used 1/3 the bottle), the can of chilies (I used about half a can because I don't like spicy things), 3/4 of the can of enchilada sauce (I used about 3/4 of the 14 ounce can but the original recipe said to use 3/4 of a 14 ounce can - which is about 10 ounces if you get a 10 ounce can), and the last cup of brown sugar.  Pour this mix over the pork and heat it in the crock pot until it is warm.

We made burritos with it (pictured above) and gave some with chips, cheese, and salsa to the neighbor to make nachos.  Next time I'd like to make the salad and I'll be prepared with guacamole.

Our Review

This was good.  The mix in the blender didn't smell anything like what I'd eaten at Cafe Rio so I wasn't very optimistic about it, but once I took the first bite of the meat, I was sold.  It's sweet, and ours really wasn't spicy, probably because I barely used any of the chilies.  We will definitely make this again.

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Chicken Cacciatore Crock Pot

Chicken

Ingredients

1 lb chicken breasts

26 oz chunky vegetable-style spaghetti sauce

1 green pepper, chopped

1 sweet onion, chopped

Place all ingredients into the crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Can be served with spaghetti noodles and garnished with olives and Parmesan cheese.

Our Review

I was not expecting this to taste good.  Partly because the only chunky spaghetti sauce that I found was a can of Hunts brand spaghetti sauce and I'm not a fan of tomato things coming out of cans.  I was surprised, this was really good.  I don't even like bell peppers but I ate everything from this dish.  

*** You can put all of these ingredients in a ziplock bag and freeze them for an easy meal later.

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Work in progress

I am in the process of copying over all of the recipes from my old blog to this one so that all of my things will be in one space.  I am also trying to re-format the entries so they look uniform and organized AND adding the sources as to where I find them (if I know or can figure it out.)

If anyone finds a recipe that doesn't have a source linked and you know the source, feel free to let me know.

Tequila Lime Flank Steak

This was a made up recipe one night when I knew I wanted to have flank steak this morning but also knew I wanted to get rid of some liquor because I never drink.

I poured some lime tequila over the flank steak, sliced up some limes and onions and then added some salt and pepper and cilantro.  I let it marinate overnight and then grilled it on the George Foreman the next day.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't amazing.  It was eatable and that was enough.

Crock Pot Taco Soup

Ingredients

1 pound lean ground beef (cooked with the onion)

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

3 c water

3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into bite size pieces

14.5 oz can Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can V8 vegetable juice

1 c chopped celery

1 c sliced carrot

2 tsp sugar

1 tbsp dried parsley flakes

2 tsp dried basil

1 bay leaf

Add all ingredients to a crock pot and cook on low for about 4 hours or until vegetables are tender.

Discard bay leaf before serving.

Our Review

I wasn't thinking this would taste as good as it did.  I went back for more.  The V8 had me worried and this was a bit tomato-ey but it wasn't bad.  I made it a second time and added beef broth in place of half of the water.  It also needed to cook longer than 4 hours both times.  I think it ended up being about 6 hours.

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