I don't know about you, but I am always on the look-out for new crockpot recipes. I LOVE using my crockpot, but it's hard because between my workday and commute, I am gone from home for a minimum of 10 hours every day! Most crockpot recipes are for much less than that, even if I cook them on low instead of high. So far, I have only found 1 dish and 2 soups that are able to hold up to this timeframe. But then, I came across this recipe and saw that it could go 6-9 hours. I figured, I bet it could hold up a lot longer if it had just a bit more liquid and I tried it! Of course, I also had to tweak it! Here is my version:
Crockpot Salsa Chicken
from Clara Ogren, Six Food Intolerance Living
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts or thighs (can even use frozen)
1 can corn, drained
1 can black beans, drained
1 can diced tomatoes, NOT drained
1 jar salsa (chose the spiciness level that is right for your family)
2-3 tbsp lime juice
1-2 tsp of adobo powder
Half of a bunch of cilantro, chopped
Tortilla chips or soft corn tortillas
Directions:
Place chicken, salsa, corn, beans, tomatoes (with juice), lime juice and adobo powder into crockpot, mix.
Cook on low for 10-12 hours.
Just before serving, sprinkle in the cilantro, mix in.
To eat, shred chicken (this can be done in the crockpot with a spoon) and serve with tortilla chips, over rice or inside soft corn tortillas.
Tips:
A nice lettuce side salad is the perfect accompaniment to this meal or instead top the salad with the chicken mixture for a fiesta salad
Top with sliced avocado or with a dollop of guacamole
If you are able to have dairy, this dish would be great topped with sour cream and/or shredded cheese
And wouldn't you know it, it held up beautifully for 12 hours. I mixed it around a bit to evenly distribute the liquids and it was perfect as it stayed nice and moist! I took my lid off and on a lot the last 2 hours or so doing a lot of mixing. If yours is too liquidy, just take the lid off, turn the crockpot on high, watch it and mix occasionally. That'll help boil out the liquid. I don't know about you, but I'd rather it be too liquidy and moist than dry and hard! ;)
I ate this rolled up in soft corn tortillas with a side salad. Hubby ate it with tortilla chips and was plenty happy without the cheese (though I'm sure he would have prefered it!).
This dish was super easy - effortless, really and was quite tasty. And, it's pantry-friendly! What more could you ask for? :D
Back when I was doing Weight Watchers, I was looking for a lot of meat alternatives. I had already used a lot of turkey breakfast meats and ground turkey in place of ground beef in hamburgers, spaghetti, etc, but ground turkey just did not cut it for a real hamburger. One day, when I was shopping with my Hubby, he saw this:
Buffalo? Ground buffalo? Huh. Then I flipped it over and looked at the nutritional information:
Hm. Not too shabby. So, we took it home, tried it and loved it! It tasted just like beef - but was healthier and thus less WW points. It went straight into rotation! Though, recently, it has not been. I see it at the stores, but we really just don't eat much ground meat much anymore and when we do, it's always turkey.
Well, a few weeks ago, I went into the doctor for a general checkup. Verdict - I have a Vitamin D deficiency (which, if you want to know, I am trying to solve with a good multivitamin and this which has 2,000 IUs of vitamin D in 1 tsp! Wow!) and my cholesterol was high. The over-all cholesterol wasn't so bad, but my triglycerides were way bad ... like nearly double what it should be. Eek! So, anyway, I need to bring it down badly. The doctor prescribed more exercise, less sugars, less carbs and less/better meat (and, surprisingly, the fish oil that I suggested taking helps lower triglycerides too! Score!). Anyway, I started doing some research on sugar alternatives (will discuss this more later) and on meat. I thought - what meats are better for you, which ones have less calories and fat? Then I thought again of that lovely ground buffalo that I used to eat back on Weight Watchers and I dove into the research.
Among other places, I turned to the USDA website for information. Did you know they have a search tool to help you find out what nutrients are in the foods you eat? Pretty cool. So, I looked up all the various meats that I eat to get a better idea and I put together a table.
First, some notes and disclaimers before I share this table. First of all, I am not a nutritionist, I just compiled the information that I found on what I think is an unbiased, trustworthy site. Please do your own research and consult with your own doctors/nutritionists before deciding what is best for you. Anyway, notes - you will notice this table does not include pork. I am intolerant to pork, therefore don't eat it, and didn't include it in this list. I only included meats that I eat, but the USDA link that I gave above should give you information on pork should you want it. I kept all the amounts the same - 1 cup cooked. I tried to pick all ground meats. Buffalo (Bison) only had one listing on the USDA site. I'm not sure if it's ground or steak or what, but it's all I had, so I used it. I also wanted to use all lean ground meats, like I did in the instance of the beef, but ground chicken and ground turkey only had one listing. I'm not sure what percentage these would be or what, but I only had one option so I had to take what I could get! ;) Finally, I rounded. I hate all those decimals, so I used the typical rounding methods - .5 and up got rounded up, .4 and down got rounded down. Easy peasy, right?
So, here are my results based on the information found with the nutrients search on the USDA Website.
| Bison, cooked | Ground beef, 85% - 89% lean, cooked | Lamb, ground or patty, cooked | Turkey, ground | Ground Chicken | |
| Serving Size | 1 cup, cooked | 1 cup, cooked | 1 cup, cooked | 1 cup, cooked | 1 cup, cooked |
| Energy (kcal) | 192 | 305 | 346 | 296 | 301 |
| Protein (g) | 38 | 32 | 30 | 34 | 34 |
| Fat, total (g) | 3 | 18 | 24 | 17 | 17 |
| Cholesterol (mg) | 110 | 109 | 118 | 128 | 110 |
| Saturated fatty acids, total (g) | 1 | 7 | 10 | 4 | 5 |
| Monounaturated fatty acids, total (g) | 1 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 7 |
| Polyunaturated fatty acids, total (g) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Calcium (mg) | 11 | 22 | 27 | 32 | 19 |
| Iron (mg) | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Magnesium (mg) | 5 | 3 | 30 | 2 | 2 |
| Sodium (mg) | 76 | 485 | 496 | 545 | 513 |
| Vitamin B-12 (mcg) | 4 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Folate, total (mcg) | 4 | 3 | 23 | 0 | 0 |
So, as you can see, buffalo has much fewer calories, slightly more protein, significantly less fat, less calcium, slightly more iron and much less sodium than all the other meats. And it tastes great? Pretty cool!
Another interesting thing I found out from this table - I had no idea just how high in calories and fat lamb was! Yikes! Good thing I only eat it a few times a year. I mean, I really love it, but my Hubby does not, so I only make it when he is out of town or my parents make it when we visit sometimes (and a steak for my Hubby). It is surprising high in magnesium and folate though.
For me, I think what I'm going to do is stick to turkey for my bacon, sausage and hot dogs and use buffalo in any recipe calling for ground meat and limit beef to the occasional steak and occasionally get beef bacon (which I much prefer, but I gotta get those triglycerides down) instead of turkey bacon. Of course, I will start trying to incorporate more seafood/fish and vegetarian meals.
Now, how to sneak a meatless meal by Hubby? ;)
