Keeping up with a blog on a regular basis is apparently kind of hard. It gets even harder when you buy a house, move into that new house, plan a wedding, and successfully carry out that wedding. Between not having a lot of time to cook, and even less time to write, blogging—especially food blogging—can easily fall by the wayside. And it has. I will strive to do better.
One of my excuses for not blogging has been that my good friend Ron has been just as bad about updating his blog. I had told him that every day that he didn’t update his blog made me feel better about shirking my own responsibilities to my (however miniscule) audience. The problem is, he’s started back up again. So now I feel guilty. After all, if he can read, analyze and discuss Finnegans Wake—by many accounts the most complicated and difficult book ever written—then I at least can tell stories and post pictures of my food.
The age of this recipe will be obvious from the key ingredient: Hatch chilies. Giant Eagle had big boxes of Hatch chilies when they were (briefly) in season. I had read about how beloved these chilies were, and so when presented with an opportunity to cook with them I wanted to take advantage while I could.
Tania and I have been busy over the past many months (see intro paragraph). So we’ve been looking for recipes that are not too labor intensive and that enable us to balance our work, exercise, and other extracurricular schedules. Enter slow-cooker stage right. It’s really nice to be able to walk in the door and have dinner essentially ready and waiting. And, although sometimes the long cooking times can result in somewhat bland dishes, the spice from the peppers helped to avoid that pitfall here.
We found this recipe for Country Captain Chicken in the slow-cooker, and it seemed to check all the boxes. Including being delicious!
Slow-cooker Country Captain Chicken
1 (28-ounce) can diced peeled tomatoes (do NOT drain)
1 onion, chopped
1 tart green apple, such as Pippin or Granny Smith, cored and chopped
3-4 Hatch chilies, roasted, peeled, seeded and chopped (or use one 3 to 4-ounce can diced green chiles)
½ cup golden or dark raisins
4 ½ teaspoons curry powder
1 tablespoon Minute Tapioca
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed (or ¾ teaspoon garlic powder)
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 ¼-1 ½ pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast, trimmed of fat and cut into large bite-size chunks
For serving: Cooked brown jasmine or white jasmine rice
Garnishes: Slivered toasted almonds, cilantro (optional)
Most of the ingredients, but missing the key one–Hatch chilies!
Instructions
1. Spray the inside of the crock of a larger slow cooker with nonstick spray.
2. Add tomatoes and juice, onion, apple, chiles, raisins, curry powder, tapioca, garlic, ginger and chicken.
3. Stir to combine, making sure chicken is well coated.
4. Cover and cook on low about 3 ½-4 hours, until the chicken is cooked through.
5. Serve over rice. Top with slivered almonds (good for texture) and cilantro if desired.
Before…
and after!
Pie are Round 
I’m going to try this recipe soon!! Yay for a blog update!
Happy weekend to you and Tania,
Kelly.
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