I love to travel! There’s nothing like learning new things and seeing new places. As a blogger, I love to attend several conferences and while it’s fun to travel, there is a certain amount of prep work that must be done to get out of the door. One of the things many of us do to prepare for conferences is prepare meals for the family we’re leaving behind. In preparing for my trip to Sacramento to attend kidlitcon, I turned to my friend Heather, from Real, the Kitchen and Beyond, for food suggestions.
Chicken is very easy to prepare in numerous ways and my only requirement for Heather was that the meals couldn’t have dairy in them which meant no cheese. Boo. Anyway, after reading Heather’s recipes here, I had my ideas! We secured 5-8 pounds of chicken in bulk and I set to work cooking. If you’re like me and don’t have a crock pot big enough for all that cluck, you hafta get creative.
My family is the epitome of picky eaters so we only buy chicken breasts. I like to divide up the chicken according to how many people I think might eat this particular thing i’m going to cook.
For the Crockpot, I placed 3 breasts and covered in water. I added half a bag of Lipton Chicken Soup for flavoring. Once this had cooked, my Pumpkin shredded it and used it for chicken tacos.
Next I pulled out my dutch oven for the stove top.
Three or four chicken breasts should do the trick here. I was making chicken chili, so the more chicken the better.
I just use basic seasonings here; pepper, minced garlic (I prefer fresh but jar or dry will suffice in a pinch), and onion powder. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for hours. Chicken should break apart with a fork. Do not remove chicken from the pot; just break it apart right there with a giant fork or spoon or whatever you have.
Then add your fave beans. I just used whatever I had on hand: Canneloni beans, Light Red kidney beans, Black beans. Any beans that you like will do. When I’m making beef chili i don’t drain the beans because I need the liquid but because I’m making chicken and there is plenty of liquid in the pot, I drain the beans. It’s your choice.
After adding the beans, I add
- chili powder
- paprika
- cumin
- sofrito
- stewed tomatoes that have some sort of flavoring in them for a little kick like jalapeños or similar.
If your family is’t much on spices totally back off on the spicy flavors. Just for fun I added little alphabet pastas because that’s what I had in the pantry.
Cover and simmer for an hour or so, stirring frequently. The longer it simmers, the softer your beans will be. When chili is ready, I IMMEDIATELY freeze half of it so I can enjoy a meal quickly one day when I’m strapped for a meal.
Finally, the remaining chicken went in the oven.
I covered the chicken with water and sprinkled a little bit of minced garlic garlic for flavor. Bake at 250 for several hours until tender. I made no plans for this chicken so that the family could do what they want with it. My husband likes to put chicken on top of his Lean Cuisines or on a store bought salad; my pumpkin likes to make bbq sandwiches, so I like to leave them with options.
Because my family has weird eating preferences and also because my kids are 22 and 17, I generally tend to cook only on Sundays. The rest of the week they can heat up leftovers or fix their own meals since I am working.
Now that I know my family will have food in the house, I’m free to hit the skies for my own traveling adventures!
What do you fix for your family when you go away? Don’t forget to pop over to Heather’s site and show her some love!