Crock on.

I love my crockpot. It's great during the summer, when you just really don't want the extra heat from the stove, or on busy (or lazy) days when you just won't have time to cook a meal for your family. There are so many things you can do in it, meals, stock, cake, bread, yogurt! 


I knew I'd be out of the house most of the day today, and while I can make this on the stove (or even the power cooker  *I'll try to post about the wonders of that thing another day!) in about 30 minutes, I knew I wasn't going to want to come home and mess with that at 5:30 with a toddler who didn't take a nap so I tossed this soup into the crockpot when I got up at let it cook on low for 9 hours. S got home before me and tossed a cornbread in the oven and dinner was done! 

This can be done in the crockpot (I've always done it on low all day) or on the stove in 30 minutes, or you can let it simmer longer than that to develop more flavors, like most soups, its not picky about how long it cooks for. The only real difference between stove and crockpot, besides being able to set and forget it is that on the stove, I brown off my chicken and onions. I tossed everything into the crockpot frozen. 

I started with frozen chicken breasts (you could totally use beef too), I tossed in about 7 or so (they weren't very big) because we love to freeze this and have leftovers. ***Due to the chipolte peppers the spice intensifies while frozen, you can omit them or cut back, use a less spicy pepper.* I chopped up 2 onions, and used frozen bell pepper because its what I had. I don't really normally measure these things. If I have fresh bell pepper sometimes I will char it, to add extra flavor. You can also roast your corn, but I just toss in frozen whole kernel corn. The heat level is up to your tastebuds. We like it SPICY, so I use a lot of chipolte peppers. 2 is usually plenty, but I'm a glutton for punishment. The first time I made this, I used half a can..and boy was it HOT. We ate it, and loved it but couldn't feel our tongues for a few days. Chicken broth, and tomato products plus some seasoning finish it up. 

At this point, you can really add in anything else you think would be good. My mom adds zucchini to hers (which is AWESOME) but S is allergic, so we omit it. Beans would be good as well.

Nothing ever really looks good when you first toss it in the crockpot...

We top our soup with shredded cheese, sour cream, green onions and tortilla chips. We didn't have any chips today so we just tossed together a cornbread to serve with it. 

Perfect for a cold night!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

chicken breasts (I'd say about a pound.), *normally I'd cut them into chunks, but I left them whole since they were frozen, and cut before serving*
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, either chared and diced or just diced 
1 tbsp minced garlic
1-2 chopped chipolte in adobo peppers  *remember these are SPICY* 
28 oz stewed tomatoes
8 oz tomato sauce
3 cups chicken broth 
1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
salt and pepper
corn ( I never measure and just use what looks like enough.) 

Toss this all in the crockpot on low for about 9 hours, or high for about 4.5. You can also cook it on the stove (brown chicken, and onions and toss everything else in the pan) for a minimum of 30 minutes. 

Top with sour cream, cheese, avocado, tortilla chips, raw onion. Serve with cornbread. 


                                                                       Enjoy! 
                                  Kay