Recipe: Mexican Chicken Dump

There are certain words I try to avoid using when I'm talking about food I'm cooking or eating. Among them are the aforementioned scum, the worst word in the world - moist, and the word I just used in the title of this blog - dump. Juicy is also on the list - unless you're talking about a peach, plum or other stone fruit, but even then it's not my favorite descriptor.

The reason this recipe is called Mexican Chicken Dump, however, is because you literally just dump all the ingredients in the Crock Pot, walk away, do something, come back 6-8 hours later, and Voila*! Dinner is ready. Another suitable name or it would be Mexican A Monkey Could Make This Chicken. So you can call it whatever you like.

Have you become one with your Crock Pot yet? My Crock and I had a love-hate relationship for a long time. I tried to make things, it would burn them, I would cry and hate it. Ok it was more of a hate-hate relationship. I wanted to love it, but it wouldn't let me. I think I had a faulty Pot, though, because once I burned something so bad the Pot couldn't be recovered (that was a very dark day in my life), so I bought a new one and since that day I haven' t burned one thing.

So if you are like me, and struggling with your CP, this recipe is for you. You can't screw it up. I

have made this countless times, and it always comes out perfect. It's simple, it's delicious, and you can use the product for lots of different things. I know a lot of people out there

already make this, but just in case you haven't heard of this before - here you go.

In your CP, dump the following items:

4-6 chicken breasts, FROZEN (don't be scared, it's ok, they will cook up nicely and not dry out)

1 large jar salsa (I use Pace Picante Sauce)

1 can corn, drained

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained (even if you think you don't dig on black beans, add them - you can't really taste them and along with the corn it gives the dish a nice color)

I have a CP with time settings - 4, 6, 8 or 10 hours. I've cooked it on every setting except 4 hours, and it's always come out good. If you only have high or low settings, I'd go with low.

Once it's done cooking, pull the chicken breasts out of the crock pot and shred them with 2 forks. Add the shredded meat back into the CP and allow it a few minutes to soak up some of the liquid (if your sauce is a little watery, it's ok, the meat will soak it up). About 5 minutes should do it.

Now, you have a choice. The chicken in the pot is ready to eat, and is great as a taco, or as a taco salad. But I like to be really obscene, so at this stage, I add some cream cheese. Oh yes. Cream cheese.

Just a little - less than a half a block, and I used the light stuff this time (not always the case). Cut it up into little bits and allow it another 5 minutes to melt. Give it all a good stir. The cream cheese adds just a touch of richness and creaminess, and it's heaven. Oh, there's another word I don't like when talking about food: creamy. Ick. But this stuff is good.

I serve it with warm tortillas and Spanish rice.

And yes, I use the rice out of the paper package. Go ahead and do it - it tastes good

and this meal is supposed to be easy for you.

Mmmm Mmmmm Good! Mexican Chicken Monkey Dump! Hope you make it and enjoy it!

*I used to work with a woman who would frequently say "Voila" about pretty much anything. However, she actually said it phonetically, so she was saying "Voy-lah" instead of "Wah-lah", which of course is how it's pronounced. It really got on my last good nerve and I never did tell her how it drove me up the wall. Every time she said it, I cringed.

Tales from the Crock...and other

otOh

Em

Geeeeeeee.

The pot roast was good. Real good. Real real good. Gooooooood. The recipe, in case you're interested, was a combination of recipes I had found in my "Fix It and Forget It" Cookbook, and Wonder's recipe for pot roast. It could not have been easier. I mean, a monkey could have made this pot roast.

Ingredients:

2-4 pound sirloin tip roast (you can use a chuck roast if that's all you have, or all you can find, but Wonder recommended a sirloin tip roast, and it wasn't that much more expensive)

1 lb. baby carrots

3 regular sized cans of new potatoes (I know, you're thinking "canned potatoes?". I know this, because that is what I thought too...but go with me here...I mean, they're a lot easier than peeling and chopping up a bunch of regular potatoes.....they are in such cute little perfect shapes already....and they absorb the juice and flavor of the meat so well...just try it, but make sure you strain them, and then rinse them off real quick)

1/2 bag of frozen pearl onions (again, you could use fresh, regular onions, but I made this at 6:30 in the morning, and I didn't feel like chopping up an onion and having that smell on my hands all day)

1 package Lipton (or generic brand, I used HEB brand) French Onion Soup Mix

1 bay leaf

3 cups water

How To:

Put the roast, carrots, rinsed (!) potatoes, and onions in the crock pot. In a large measuring cup, or bowl, or whatever, measure out 3 cups of water and add the soup mix. Whisk until blended, and pour over the meat. Add bay leaf. Set crock pot to low (I have different hour settings, and set it to the lowest I could, which was 10 hours) and go about your buisness. Enjoy the aroma of the meat cooking. Mmmmm. After 10 hours (probably it was done in 8, and then it just sat and soaked up all that yummy juice), eat!

Notes:

The meat was so tender, we just used our forks to pull it apart. Also, I have a very large crock pot, so if you have a smaller one, you might have to cook the meat first, (overnight?) and then the veggies after that. This is what Wonder says she does. And, 3 cups of water is a lot of liquid, you could probably get away with 2 but a)I have a fear of burning things in my crock pot (because it's betrayed me before) and b)with the leftover juices, I made a delicious little simple gravy. I put butter and flour in a pan, let it melt and mix together, and added some of the juice, brought it up to a boil and Voila! Gravy. Twas most tasty, if I do say so myself. And I do.

The Olympics!!!!!!

Check this bad boy out. It combines my two great loves. The Olympics and Cupcakes. Cupcakes and the Olympics. Hot damn.

3 days to go!!!! I know what I will be doing this weekend. I just wish I knew where I could get some of those cupcakes.

Speaking of the Olympics (non knitters beware, you will not understand anything of what I'm about to say), I've been considering joining the Ravelympics for a few weeks now, but have been hesitant to do so. I was never good at competitive sports, which is perhaps why I took up knitting as a hobby in the first place, and so the idea of competitive knitting puts me off a little. I am clearly running out of time to make my decision, but procrastination is my middle name (Ok, actually it's Elizabeth, but whatevs) and I like to live on the edge. Anyway, if you are knitty inclined, please comment me and tell me why (or why not) I should participate (or not) in the Ravelympics. I mean I guess it's not like I won't ever have any time to knit, since I plan to sit my happy ass in front of the telly and watch watch watch all day long watch.

I got raped

Settle. I didn't really get raped. But last night we needed dishwashing detergent, and I needed a stick of deoderant (it broke off in my shirt when I was putting it on yesterday morning. I hate when it does that), so I ran to Walgreens. There's a Walgreens on the corner by our house, it's the closest store. I didn't feel like driving all the way to HEB (the grocery store) or Wal-Mart (and I hate Wal-Mart anyway), so Walgreens it was.

I purchased the above pictured 3 items. Anyone want to take a guess how much that cost me? Seriously, anyone. Guess. I will tell you later, in the comments section. Let me just tell you this, it was outrageous. I felt violated. I went home and took a hot shower.

Gratuitous Cute Kid Shot!

It's been awhile.

Dance, Sydney! Dance!!!!

Massive Monday Mouthful

Damn, I'm good. I'm just saying is all. Remember how I said that because of my Nasty Eye Infection of Death I wasn't going to hold myself to the One Knitted Christmas Gift Per Week self-imposed deadline for last week? Well, I did it anyway. Because damn, I'm good. And for almost all of the Christmas gifts I'm knitting, I am not going to post pictures here, because people who will be receiving the knitty love also read the bloggy, and I cannot have them seeing their gifts ahead of time. BUT! In this once instance, I am going to post a picture because I am just so damn crafty and proud of myself. I realize this is not any sort of giant knitting feat. This is maybe one of the easiest things I've ever knit. It took me 2 hours total (plus felting and drying time), but they just came out so darned cute, I am so happy.

Felted Coasters!!! I got the pattern from my One Skein Wonders book, but I altered it quite a bit. It called for bulky weight wool, I used worsted. It said to cast on 11 sts, but of course with the worsted, that wasn't nearly enough. So I kind of just winged it. But the best part was that I got to use my new felting needle tool from Knit Picks. I realize my Christmas tree is a little, shall we say, "abstract", but it's my first design and I'm happy with it. Also, my felting tool BROKE after the first use. So I only managed to get one tree done. I'm pretty unhappy about it because I figure it should have a longer life than one freaking coaster, so I've emailed Knit Picks and I'm hoping they will replace it (or at least the needles).

In other news...

I went to the movies 3 times this weekend. I decided after my mis-adventures with the great out-of-doors in the past several weeks (sunburn, infection, whathaveyou) I needed to stay inside all weekend long, which was just fine since it was about 105 degrees here this weekend and I'm not exaggerating that.

So on Friday night The Cowboy and I saw The Dark Knight.

Let me tell you what, that was a long movie. A good movie. A great movie, even. But man alive it was long. With previews and everything it was about 3 hours. Anyway, all the hype about this movie is true. It was great. Very dark, very violent, and Heath Ledger's performance was amazing and scary and hilarious all at once.

Saturday we switched gears and saw Stepbrothers.

This movie was hilarious, if you like fart jokes. Which I do. And other sophomoric type funnies. Which this movie was loaded with. There were a couple of parts that were pretty stupid, of course, but overall, it was entertaining, mindless fun.

And on Sunday, I switched gears once again, and went (by myself I might add, which I love) to see Mamma Mia!

The Cowboy is a weirdo. In addition to not liking to hold newborn babies, he also doesn't like musicals. Ok, he's not a gay man, and I can accept that musicals aren't his favorite. But I mean, he HATES them. He didn't even watch Sesame Street as a child, because they would bust into song, and he just couldn't take it. This saddens me greatly, because I have a great love for all things musical, and I realize that I have a long future of trips to the movies and theatre by myself ahead of me. But I digress....

Mamma Mia the musical was great, and the movie was just as awesome (maybe more? I daresay?). This is high praise from me, considering Mr. High-and-Mighty Himself, Pierce Brosnan is in it, and you all know how I feel about Pierce Brosnan (and if you don't know, I will tell you and that is that I think he is full of himself and thinks his shit don't stank and I'm willing to bet that it, in fact, does). Anyway, I loved this movie! This one was probably my favorite of all 3 that we saw this weekend, but I really did like the other 2. But oh, this one made me happy. I'd see it again tonight if I could, and I can't say the same for The Dark Knight or Stepbrothers.

In other news...

I have a bad habit of starting new books when I'm in the middle of reading another book, and then one of them gets forgotten. Case and point: I am reading 3 books right now. (Never mind my bad habit of buying books all the time, just never you mind about that) Two of the books aren't even worthy of a mention, but the one I bought and started yesterday is. Behold! I give you: The Pillars of the Earth.

I've seen this book for months now, and I've heard various, many, random people talking about how good it is. It's about people who build cathedrals. Zzzzzzz. I know, right? But apparently, this book is good. I believe hype when I hear it (see: The Dark Knight), so I broke down and bought this monster yesterday at Target (thanks, Tiff!). I got the paperback, and it is 973 pages. NINEHUNDREDSEVENTYTHREE pages. It is a beast. It is the size of a large dictionary, and it's the paperback, so imagine what the hardcover looks like. Anyhoo, I started it last night, and have only read 3 chapters or so, but so far it's good. I'm not all enrapt with it or anything, but you gotta give these things time.

And finally, I will wrap up my Massive Monday Mouthful by telling you all how much I love my crock pot. Some of you may know that for awhile I had a very strained relationship with my crock. Basically, I hated its guts and in return, it burned all my food. We went round and round like this for awhile, until I found this blog. She inspired me to try it again, and I've had great success with several recipes since.

Today, my bloggy friends, I attempt a new recipe in the crock. Again, I realize this is no crock-pot feat, and I'm sure many before me have tried (and succeeded!) in making this, but dangit I'm excited. I'm making a pot roast in my crock! It's a-cooking righty now and will make the house smell warm and wonderful and I can't wait to go home and eat! If all is successful, you will hear the details tomorrow. And if all is unsuccessful, well, I'm sure you'll hear the details tomorrow in that case too. Because I ain't got no secrets, man.

Happy Monday!