Slow Cooker Love

We made this recipe back on Halloween and I finished writing this post on November 6 of last year. I'm not sure why we never posted it (especially since I've already posted another recipe using our slow cooker). Week 6 of the 52 week challenge includes a different recipe for rice and peas, so it's about time that I finally put this up on our blog so you know what we're comparing the new recipe with! This is pretty much exactly as written from November 2013.

We got a new slow cooker recently (the Hamilton Beach 6 quart set and forget) and we love it. I originally thought that the first recipe we would make to test out the new slow cooker would be chicken soup, but then A found this awesome-sounding recipe for slow cooker chipotle lime chicken thighs (here) and plans immediately changed. The recipe also included instructions for a side of Jamaican rice and peas that we made alongside it. After trying it, we're instead calling this recipe "chipotle chicken stew with coconut rice and beans." It was delicious.

First, the chipotle chicken stew.

Ingredients:

I remembered the cilantro for the photo but not when it came time to garnish...

- 1/2 yellow onion ($0.30)

- 3 stalks of celery ($0.25)

- 2 carrots ($0.50)

- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts ($3)

- Salt ($0.05)

- Black pepper ($0.05)

- 1 (15 oz) can of tomato sauce ($1.49)

- Juice of 2 limes ($0.45)

- 2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce plus ~1 tbsp of sauce ($0.60)

- 4 garlic cloves ($0.10)

The recipe also called for garnishes of avocado and cilantro leaves, but (1) I couldn't find an avocado I liked at the store and didn't really know how to pick a good one back then and (2) I completely forgot about adding the cilantro in my glee over the taste of the stew. Oops. Maybe next time.

The total cost of this part of the recipe was approximately $6.79. Next time, I think I would use a whole onion instead of 1/2 and add in the avocado and cilantro, so that would probably bump the total up to $8-9. Not terrible for a poultry meal that was enough for dinner for two plus two lunches for one (and probably could have lasted longer if we hadn't been such happy gluttons the first night we had the stew).

Process:

1. Prep the ingredients. Chop the mirepoix (onions, celery, carrots). Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper. Whisk together the sauce ingredients - tomato sauce, lime juice, minced chipotle chiles, adobo sauce, minced garlic.

2.  Layer the slow cooker. Mirepoix on the bottom.

Arrange chicken over vegetables. [I think next time I'll turn the chicken so the "flat" sides are facing up and then season with salt and pepper on the other side too.]

Pour sauce mixture over chicken and vegetables.

3.  Cook on low for 6 hours. [It says 6:30 in the photo but we stopped it early. I know you're not really supposed to open the slow cooker to stir it but it was our first time with it so I stirred it a few times. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to open it to flake the chicken with two forks maybe 1/2 hour before the recipe is done.]

And for the side dish, coconut rice and beans.

Ingredients:

Ignore the Chef Boyardee and the fried onions that had nowhere else to go in the pantry...

- 2 cups brown rice (~$1)

- 1 can light coconut milk ($0.99)

- 1 cup water ($0)

- 1 can of red kidney beans ($0.79)

- 1 tsp dried thyme ($0.10)

- Finely grated lime zest ($0.05)

- 1/4 cup chopped scallions ($0.20)

- Salt ($0.05)

- Black pepper ($0.05)

The rice cost came out to approximately $3.50 but that is a real ballpark estimate since I have no idea how much the rice really costs. Not bad considering how much rice this made. It's also quite dense so you can't really eat that much of it at once without feeling it sitting like a rock in your stomach (said in the best way possible).

Process:

1. In a medium saucepan, combine the brown rice, coconut milk, water, beans, thyme and lime zest. Set over high heat and bring to boil. Reduce to low, cover and simmer until liquid is absorbed. 

[Photo of pot ready to boil should go here but I forgot to take one]

All of my liquid absorbed before the rice tasted done, so we kept adding more water and simmering until we felt like it was done and not too chewy. We stopped when it had the consistency of barley. As it sat and waited for the stew, it continued to soften up.

2. Add scallions, salt and pepper to taste.

3. Mix it all up and it's done.

Review:

We were so happy with this dish. The coconut rice and beans were really rich and heavy, but combined with the stew, it cooled down some of the spice and added a nice coconut flavor. That said, it wouldn't be necessary to make this with the stew, and regular rice (or other grains) would work just as well (and would be cheaper). We haven't had any Jamaican rice and peas that tasted like this before, which is why we renamed it to coconut rice and beans.

The chipotle chicken stew was amazing. I surprised A a little bit with how spicy it was, which was completely due to the chipotle chiles in adobo. The recipe called for 1 tbsp minced, but I had been reading a lot of Chowhound threads on chipotle chiles where people kept saying they usually use 2 for everything they make, so I used 2. Of course one of them was gigantic, so I guess it was probably more like 3 chiles. And chipotle chiles are not mild. If you don't know what they are, they're smoked jalapenos, which should give you some idea of their heat. I moved them into this tiny plastic Gladware thing to put in the fridge, and they barely fit. To get the cover on, more and more of the adobo sauce kept squirting out, so I just added the rest of the adobo sauce to the recipe. The result was probably a bit spicier than it needed to be to get the good spicy, smoky flavor. But it was so good that we're not complaining about that at all. Maybe next time I won't use quite so much...

The chicken flaked off like pulled chicken. The carrots, celery and onions were soft like they are in soup. The sauce was zesty and spicy. It was a really great recipe and we were so glad that we made it. Never would have predicted that this would be the first thing to come out of our slow cooker (still haven't made chicken soup, now that I'm thinking about it), but really satisfied.