Misc. & Chicken Recipe

You can tell Spring is coming by the traffic going by our house now - mostly pickups! The farmers are running around getting organized for planting next month. We do have less traffic in the summer and winter! And what I consider traffic I know is NOTHING compared to what many of you have going by or near your houses! Coming from Carmel to here, I love being back in the country and not hearing the hum of traffic.

I grew up on a country road just north of Carmel that we could ride our bicycles down the middle of. Now it's a very busy 4 lane road with divider down the middle. You have to watch your rear view mirror when turning right to make sure the person behind you is going to slow down when you turn and not plow into you. (also hard to turn left out of the subdivision) From my house, you could hear the traffic even with windows closed. And the lawnmowers!! Somebody was ALWAYS mowing in the summer. I used to wish there could be a day when everybody cut their grass to get all the noise over with at once! Here we live near the cemetery so there is lawn mowing there a lot but it's far enough away that it's not bad at all.

Wanted to mention that we helped Bill's friend, Kyle, move into their new home a couple weekends ago. Our builder, Community Lumber of West Bend, built theirs also, and it's a beautiful house! They have a sage green siding with white trim, kind of a cherry color of woodwork and cabinets (so pretty) and I love their solid surface kitchen counter top color (a little darker than ours). The best thing is that their house sits up high on their lot so their views out their many and big living room windows is awesome! The day they moved it was snowing so I was picturing what it will look like in Dec. for their first Christmas there. Kyle's mom had everyone over to their house for a really nice lunch. Danielle's mom and dad and sister & her family came down from the Dubuque, Iowa area (where we got married!) and were a big help. Her sister had a baby the same age as Camry but this baby Isabelle was already crawling and sitting up. She is really fast!

I mentioned before the blogging break that Bill and I are trying to lose some weight this winter. By now we're doing much better than we were then! (way better!) At the time I mentioned it, I hadn't figured out how to spread the protein and dairy throughout the day right to avoid being hungry. Had choc. cravings with no solutions, wanted something crunchy. We have most of that figured out now and have both lost about 10 pounds so far! Here is our favorite new to us recipe that is "good for you" and tastes good too!

SALSA CHICKEN (crock pot)

boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 3 or can use more or less)
large jar of Salsa
bag of frozen corn
can of drained, rinsed black beans (or 2)
1-2 packets taco seasoning

Put the chicken in the crock pot (can be frozen). Add the beans, corn and I put the salsa on top. Cook on Low 7-8 hours or on High about 4. Shred the chicken with 2 forks. It will soak up all the juices.

This can be eaten as a main dish as is but we like it in a browned tortilla with a little cheese melted on the chicken mixture. For me, I have 1 tortilla folded over but make Bill's with a tortilla on top and bottom. It can also be eaten in tacos, in a taco salad or scooped with Tostitos Scoops. I add chopped lettuce, a little low fat sour cream, green onions if I have them and salsa on the side. Some chopped tomato would be good when in season or jalapeno slices. With 3 chicken breasts, it makes quite a bit. I froze 2 containers for meals later.

Let me know if you try this!

Some have asked how to print just the recipe. You should be able to highlight just the recipe, click on File up above, click on Print, then on your little print screen, click on Selection and it will print just what is highlighted.

Also, if you ever want to go back to find a recipe I've posted, you'll see in the right column that the posts are all categorized like Recipes, Family, Holidays, Farming Related. If you click on one of those categories like Recipes, you'll get all of the posts that have a recipe or all the Farming Related posts for example. Hope this helps.