My friend Abby and I have an annual tradition of watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single cold, winter’s day every January or February.  Nevermind that it turned out to be about 60 degrees on our “cold” day this year. 😛  We added a new tradition of walking around the block with each disk change and continued a tradition started last year of making some sort of slow cooker “stew” to eat when Eowyn makes Aragorn stew in The Two Towers.

This year’s dish was based on this recipe from  pinchofyum.com and it was SO GOOD.  I’ve been making this for my cooking club, too, so (as usual) I increased the protein and made it as simple as humanly possible.  

Ingredients:

4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
4 links (about 12 ounces) of Andouille chicken sausage (I use Trader Joe’s), cut ino half moons
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 15 ounce can of tomato sauce
2 cans Sofrito (I use Badia because I like that it’s kind of chunky and actually looks like tomatoes, onions and peppers, rather than just a sauce.  If you can’t find it or don’t want to bother, you could just use fresh diced tomato, onions and green peppers or any combination of diced and canned that you prefer.)
2 cups chicken broth
3 T minced garlic
2 T Creole seasoning (I use Tony Cachere’s)
1 t Cayenne pepper

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients except chicken in the slow cooker.  I do this so it’s easier to mix the spices in and so you can taste and adjust the seasonings before adding the raw chicken.  Once that is mixed and tastes the way you want, add the chicken.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high 3-4 hours until the chicken is cooked and easy to shred.  Roughly shred into chunky pieces and serve!

Note: You may think you see shrimp in that picture.  You’re right!  I needed some extra protein today so, on a whim, I added a cup of cooked salad shrimp to my serving.  IT WAS DELICIOUS.  (the macros for this do NOT reflect the shrimp)

For each of 8 servings:  448 calories, 8.6 grams of fat, 28.1 grams of carbs ( 8.8 grams of fiber), 64 grams of protein.

You can also make it 10 servings:  358 calories, 6.9 grams of fat, 22.5 grams of carbs (7 grams of fiber), 51.2 grams of protein

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