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Slow Cooker

7 Day Slow Cooker Challenge – Chicken and Chorizo Stew

JayneLeave a comment

So, you may or may not have noticed that this post is a day late and there is a very good reason for that.

We had a potato disaster.

As with most of my slow cooker recipes, I research the dish that I want to make and adjust them to our tastes and the fact that my Crock Pot cooks things a little quicker than a conventional slow cooker. All of the recipes for chicken and chorizo stew varied their cooking time between 8 and ten hours on low, so I figured 4 hours on high in my Crock Pot would be plenty. However, after 4 and a half hours on high, the potatoes were still rock hard! In fact, the dish wasn’t actually properly edible until about 9.30pm, by which time we’d declared it a disaster and gone to get fish and chips! The girls needed to eat and of course, all of this weeks shopping was geared toward slow cooked meals, so a takeaway was the only option.

However, once the stew WAS cooked, it was totally delicious. We’ve saved it for dinner today and I’m so glad we did, rather than abandoning it altogether. The chorizo has released its smoky flavour into the dish and broth around the meat and veg was rich and warming. Our first two dishes were things which were made to go with non-slow cooked accompaniments, but this was a true one pot meal, with the protein, carbs and veg all cooked together, which is what the essence of slow cooking is about for me.

Chicken and Chorizo Stew

Here’s how we made it:

Chicken and Chorizo Stew

7 Day Slow Cooker Challenge – Chicken and Chorizo Stew
Recipe Type: Slow Cooker
Cuisine: Spanish
Author: Jayne Crammond
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4
A slow cooked stew with smoky chorizo and tasty chicken.
Ingredients
  • 600g chicken breast, cubed
  • One onion, diced
  • 450g potato, peeled and cubed
  • 250ml chicken stock
  • 2 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes
  • 2 tsp chili powder
  • 200g chorizo, sliced
  • 1 red pepper, sliced
  • 1 green pepper, sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced or grated
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 30g black olives
Instructions
  1. Place all of the ingredients (apart from the olives) into the slow cooker
  2. Stir well
  3. Cook on high for 6-8 hours (depending on your slow cooker!)
  4. Add olives around 30 minutes before you’re ready to serve
  5. Serve with crusty bread and sour cream

I must admit, I often avoid dishes with potato in them as I’ve had a disaster like this before; the one and only time I cooked my lamb stew in my Crock Pot, the potatoes didn’t soften very well and I put it down to the fact that the pot was just too full, so the heat didn’t permeate as well as it could have. This stew was far less voluminous and the potato was the only root veg, so I thought we’d be fine, but alas not! I think the moral of this tale is to always give yourself PLENTY of time for dishes with potato to cook…I’d actually be tempted to put this on at about 8am in future, just to be sure it was completely cooked, but the effort would be worth it as the stew tastes fabulous!

Have you been slow cooking this week? Don’t forget to blog about it and link up below.

LINKY REMOVED

Cooking and Recipes · Food · Slow Cooker

Slow Cooker Chorizo Stuffed Chicken with Ratatouille

Jayne1 Comment

Stuffed Chicken and Slow Cooker Ratatouille

Things have been a bit hectic in the Mum’s the Word house since Sausage went back to school; first, the girls were poorly (tonsilitis), then I was poorly (gall bladder) and then the car decided to go kaput, leaving us unable to make regular trips to the shops, so we were living on what we had in the cupboards and as a result, my slow cookers have been rather neglected! Yesterday, I decided that I needed to get back into slow cooking again with something completely new, so I tried a recipe that I’ve been seeing on Facebook for a while and thought I’d share it here. I’m struggling with a succinct name for the whole dish, but it basically consists of chicken stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese on a kind of slow-cooked ratatouille concoction! Here’s how we made it:

Stuffed Chicken with Slow Cooker Ratatouille
Recipe Type: Slow Cooker
Cuisine: Mixed
Author: Jayne Crammond
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 portions
Chicken breasts, stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese, slow cooked on a bed of ratatouille.
Ingredients
  • 4 chicken breasts
  • 1 tub cream cheese
  • 12 slices of chorizo
  • 2 medium onions
  • 1 green pepper
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 yellow pepper
  • 1 punnet mushrooms
  • 300ml passata
  • 2 tsp smoked paprika
  • New potatoes, to serve
Instructions
  1. Chop your onions, peppers and mushrooms and place in the bottom of your slow cooker
  2. Add the paprika to the passata and pour the passata over the veg mix
  3. Take your chicken breasts and slice 3/4 of the way through the breast diagonally
  4. Open the flap in the chicken breast and stuff with 1 tablespoon of cream cheese and 3 slices of chorizo
  5. Close the flap over the stuffing and and place on top of the veg and passata in the slow cooker
  6. Cook on low for 4 hours
  7. Serve with new potatoes or side of your choice (would work well with sweet potato wedges, too!)

The end result was wonderful – the veg and passata were tender and fresh-tasting, while the cheese and chorizo gave the chicken a creamy, smoky quality which went really well with the ratatouille. Sausage wasn’t a huge fan because she hates mushrooms but it was a winner with the rest of us and will definitely be made again. It would go well with a number of different sides too, making it a pretty versatile, easy-to-make dish and I’m also pretty sure it contains several of your 5-a-day. Let us know what you think!

 

Cooking and Recipes · Food · Slow Cooker

Slow Cooker Hunters Chicken and Ultimate Baked Potatoes

Jayne9 Comments

Slow Cooker Hunters Chicken and Ultimate Baked PotatoesAnother week, another slow cooker experiment! Today, we’re having slow cooker Hunters Chicken and I kinda devised the idea myself from a few other things I’ve seen on slow cooker forums and the like.

Husband is still being really disciplined with what he eats and sugar is one of the main things that he’s trying to avoid (he is on a keto diet and having great success with ample k), so instead of using a barbecue sauce from a bottle which is absolutely LADEN with sugar, I’m using the same recipe that Kate at WitWitWoo uses for her slow cooker pulled pork, but slightly modified for our tastes. As a sweetener, we use erythritol, which is granular like sugar and about 40% less sweet.

In terms of baked potatoes, I’m pretty fussy. The insides need to be super fluffy and soft, while the skins should be firm and crunchy so this method of cooking has been tried and tested over the last few years. I’m serving ours with sour cream and chives as it goes beautifully with both the chicken and the barbecue sauce.

Anyway, here’s the recipe and method for Slow Cooker Hunters Chicken and Ultimate Baked Potatoes:

Slow Cooker Hunters Chicken and Ultimate Baked Potatoes
Recipe Type: Slow Cooker
Author: Jayne Crammond
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4
A slow-cooker, low-sugar version of Hunters Chicken.
Ingredients
  • For the chicken:
  • 5 Chicken Breasts (or one per person)
  • 100g Cheddar Cheese
  • 14 rashers of streaky bacon
  • ___________________________________________________________
  • For the sauce:
  • 500ml passata
  • 1 teaspoon of mustard powder
  • 1 tablespoon of garlic powder
  • 5 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce (I subbed this with 10 teaspoons of Soy Sauce)
  • 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons of sweetener
  • 2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • ___________________________________________________________
  • For the potatoes:
  • One baking potato per person
  • Olive oil
  • Salt
Instructions
  1. Slice the cheese, allowing one large slice per chicken breast
  2. Slice each chicken breast lengthways, almost all the way through, creating a flap
  3. Place the cheese inside the flap and close
  4. Wrap 3 rashers of streaky bacon around each chicken breast, fairly firmly
  5. Place in the bottom of the slow cooker
  6. In a saucepan, add all of the sauce ingredients and stir whilst bringing to a simmer
  7. Once the sauce has started to simmer, give it a good stir and pour over the chicken breasts
  8. Cook on low for 2-3 hours
  9. Place your baking potatoes in a mixing bowl
  10. Drizzle olive oil over the potatoes
  11. Give the oily potatoes a healthy sprinkle of salt
  12. Get your hands in the bolw and rub the oil and salt all over the skin of the potatoes
  13. Place in an oven at around 120°C (about gas mark 1 or 2)
  14. Cook for about 2-3 hours or until you’re ready to serve

 

Here’s the finished result, although I took the photo before I put the sour cream and corn on the cob on the plate, hence it looking a little plain!

Slow Cooked Hunters Chicken and Ultimate Baked Potatoq

Cooking and Recipes · Food · Slow Cooker

Slow Cooker Creamy Garlic Chicken with Mushrooms & Bacon

Jayne1 Comment

photo 20160213_131317_HDR_zps6y4d4xt3.jpg

We’re off out to a party for my friend’s 40th birthday this evening and we had a whole bunch of stuff in the fridge, including some chicken breasts, which needed eating by today, so I decided to try this little concoction of the various different things! I don’t know about you, but I hate going on a night out feeling bloated and full, so on the rare occasion that I go, we tend to eat our main meal at lunch time, so I’ve chucked all of this in the slow cooker at 9am, to be ready for around 1pm.

Here’s how I did it:

Slow Cooker Creamy Garlic Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon
Recipe Type: Slow Cooker
Author: Jayne Crammond
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4
Slow cooked chicken in a creamy garlic sauce with mushrooms and bacon, perfect served with pasta or potatoes.
Ingredients
  • 500g chicken breast
  • Mushrooms (around half a punnet)
  • One pack of unsmoked bacon lardons
  • One tub of Philadelphia (or other cream cheese)
  • Garlic powder
Instructions
  1. Place the chicken breasts in the slow cooker
  2. Chop the mushrooms into quarters and layer on top of the chicken
  3. Brown the lardons in a pan until lightly golden then place in the slow cooker
  4. Sprinkle garlic powder over the chicken, bacon and mushrooms, a little or a lot depending on your taste (we like a lot!)
  5. Gently spread the cream cheese across the top of the rest of the ingredients
  6. Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 4 hours or high for 2 hours
  7. Serve with pasta or potatoes of your choice

photo Slow Cooker Creamy Garlic Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon_zps7ezg4sgm.png

Given the fact that this was basically just a “chuck it all in and hope for the best” recipe, it actually came out really well and was stupidly easy to make. The girls absolutely loved it (Sausage said “Mum, is this your secret sauce because it is DELICIOUS!”) and it’s definitely one that will make it into our regular rotation. We had ours with pasta as it was the quickest option for today, but it would also go really nicely with new potatoes or even mash and possbily some broccoli or asparagus on the side.

Cooking and Recipes

Recipe – Special Spring Greens with Mediterranean Chicken and Rice (650cal)

Jayne4 Comments

special greensIt’s not often that I do anything special, in culinary terms. I mean, sure, I can cook and I do alright for Husband and the girls, but we often have quite samey food and my repertoire isn’t what you’d call massive or adventurous. However, last night, we had a dinner that was one of the tastiest things I’ve eaten on ages, a little bit different to what we usually eat and came in at just over 600 calories per plate for a really filling meal, which I think adds up to a massive win! It was also really warm and comforting and uses seasonal veg. Spring greens are PACKED with calcium, so this is a great recipe for anyone with dairy issues who struggle to get enough of this essential mineral. (Also, bear in mind that while my culinary skill may be improving, my food photography skills and presentation are NOT!). Believe me, it may not look much but it is so tasty and super healthy.

Mediterranean Chicken with Special Spring Greens and Rice

Recipe – Special Spring Greens with Mediterranean Chicken and Rice (650cal)
Recipe Type: Dinner
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Author: Jayne Crammond
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 people
Ingredients
  • 4 Chicken Breasts
  • 4 cups white rice
  • 2 cans of chopped tomatoes with basil and onions
  • 200g thick-cut bacon, finely diced
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
  • 1 hot red chile, seeded and finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
  • 500g spring greens – stems and inner ribs trimmed, leaves cut into ribbons
  • Salt
  • Freshly ground pepper
  • 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 170° fan (190° electric/Gas Mark 5)
  2. Place the chicken breasts in an over-proof dish and season with salt and pepper
  3. Cover the chicken with the chopped tomatoes and basil and cover with a lid or tin foil
  4. Place in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes
  5. Put your rice into a large saucepan and cover with cold water
  6. Put the rice on the hob and bring to the boil, then leave to cook for around 12 minutes.
  7. In a large frying pan or wok, fry the bacon or lardons until they start to turn golden
  8. Add the shallot, chilli and mustard seeds and fry for another 3 minutes, until softened
  9. Add the greens into the pan and turn to toss in the bacon and shallots – there will probably look like an enormous quantity of leaves, but keep turning using tongs or a spatula and your hand
  10. Keep the mixture over the heat until it’s all wilted down and mixed in – this will probably take about 5 minutes
  11. Once it’s all cooked down, add the white wine vinegar and stir through, just before serving.
Calories: 654 Fat: 17 Carbohydrates: 70 Sugar: 10 Sodium: 1,009 Protein: 52
Original spring greens recipe found here