Spicy Slow Cooker Chicken

I recently bought 2 whole chickens from Costco.  I cleaned the yucky insides out and popped them in the freezer (learned to clean out the insides before freezing them...heed this advice if you choose to freeze whole chickens!!).  So I thawed one over night last night and needed something that was quick, easy and delicious!  CROCK POT!!  It's my "quick and easy" solution to everything!

I went searching for a great recipe and ran across one from Kate O Lynch (original recipe here) and thought it looked amazing!  I had to do some modifications to the original because I was making this last minute and thought I had all the spices...but improvised instead!

Spicy Whole Chicken (Slow Cooker Style!)

2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper (My substitution was red pepper flakes about 1/3 tsp b/c I didn't have cayenne pepper!!)
1 tsp Onion Powder (my substitution was onion flakes...again b/c I didn't have the powder!)
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp Pepper
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 Whole Roasting Chicken
1 Onion, sliced and broken in pieces

So...like you learned above, this was a "last minute" throw together.  I did not allow the chicken to soak in with the spices overnight, however you could do that to make the flavor deeper!

I cut up the onions and broke them apart to line in the crockpot.  Mixed together all the spices above and patted the chicken, bottom first an then top, covered it completely (and I used it all).  Placed the chicken on top of the onions and set my crock pot on low for 4 hours.  I'm sure you could leave it a bit longer if you'd like but you don't want to dry it out.

After it's cooked, remove from crock pot and let it sit for a few minutes to cool some and allow the juices to soak into the chicken.  Cut up the chicken as you like and it's ready to serve!

You can easily serve this with brown rice or quinoa or potatoes along with some veggies.  OR you could serve this in tortillas and turn it into more of a Mexican meal.  Either way is absolutely delicious!!

Hope you enjoy!!

5 Minute Meal - "Spiced" Black Bean Soup

Are you ready for this?  Yes...I did say a 5 Minute Meal!  And guess what??  It's pretty healthy too!!  Now, just to be clear, this probably isn't my "go-to" for the 21 Day Fix meal plans (FOR SURE), simply because it would require too many yellow (carb) containers since the base of it is black bean soup.  However, now that we are into soccer season and 3 kids with practice and a hubby who coaches one of them, our family dinners are not as easy to come by.  So, I made this last night for a quick meal after practice and I had some leftovers that I picked from!  So it all worked out.

I will warn you...this is super delicious, but only makes enough for 4 good sized servings of soup!

Are you ready, this is quick!

• Trader Joe's Latin Style Black Bean Soup 
• 1/2 cup of fresh salsa
• 1 can of chicken breast (if you have grilled chicken already prepared you can add this instead, but this made my meal super quick and easy!)
• 1/2 cup (or more) of frozen corn

Place all the ingredients into a pot and cook until warm (or hot, whichever you prefer).  

You can top with cheese or avocado or cilantro if you want to spice it up even more!

There you have it!  Moms I know we ALL need quick and delicious meals on the fly!  Here ya go!  :)

If you are following the 21 Day Fix, this probably isn't my first choice of meals (I'd rather have my yellow used elsewhere).  I would probably count this as 2 yellows, 1/2 red for a cup of soup.