Slow-cooked Blackbean & Chicken Tacos

I have made crock pot chicken tacos a few times, tweaking as I go along. This time I decided to take the recipe I normally use and add black beans along with fresh onion, garlic and extra seasoning. Great results. There is nothing like coming home to the smell of a ready-made dinner. May this recipe lighten the load for your next dinner!

Crockpot Chicken Tacos

Serves – 8 people

1-2 Envelopes Taco Seasoning ( we have this in bulk, I used around a 1/3 cup)
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs (more tender than breast meat)
1 16-ounce jar Salsa (I used Kroger’s Simple Truth Mild Organic Salsa)
1 can black beans, drained
1/2 an onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves coaresly chopped

Dump everything into a crock pot and give it a little stir to blend the seasoning with the salsa. You do not need to add any water to the taco seasoning. My crockpot always cooks a little faster than normally suggested. Since I forgot to pull out chicken ahead of time, I put it in frozen and added some cooking time. Cook on low for 5 hours and keep on warm til ready to serve. With fresh chicken, I would have done 4 hours and then warm until served. When done, the chicken should shred easily when stirred with a fork.

For tacos, serve the chicken with soft flour tortillas and any of your favorite fixings. We simply used shredded cheese, black olives and green onion.  This is very versatile and can be used for enchiladas, nachos, tostadas, quesadillas, etc. Any leftover chicken can then be used for tortilla soup (make it the next day or freeze the chicken to use at a later time).

Recipe adapted from Tasty Kitchen

Overnight Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Usually weekend mornings are perfect for scrambling eggs with loads of veggies or whipping up fluffy pancakes. As fun as that may be, sometimes weekend mornings are made purely for sleeping in and letting the crockpot cook for you. I’ve been meaning to try this apple cinnamon oatmeal for some time and always forget to put it together the night before. Finally, I remembered! Knowing that my man loves apples, this was a sure way to get him to eat oatmeal for a change. Success! Though not as sweet as originally envisioned, it has a lot of flavor and natural sweetness from the fruit. I tend to like things lightly sweetened and so this was perfect for me. If you have a real sweet touth, add more brown sugar. Also, my crockpot tends to cook things much faster than a lot of recipes suggest. I usually cook set my cook time for a few hours less and let it finish cooking on the warm setting, keeps food from drying out.

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

2 sliced apples
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups of oatmeal
4 cups of water

2 sliced apples, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon in the bottom of the crock pot. Pour 2 cups of oatmeal and 4 cups of water on top. Do NOT stir. Cook overnight for 8 – 9 hours on low. (I did 6 hours on low and it auto switched to warm for another 2 hours). Yum!

Recipe found on a pin from Pinterest