Slow Cooker/Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup

Now that my travels are over for this year it is time for me to get busy and start cooking some nice meals for my wife and myself.  I had talked to my daughter recently about Slow Cookers and Crock Pots and whether I should get one or not.  She thought they were very good to have and even recommended the Ninja MC702.  Being me I thought I should take her advice and get one and specifically the one she recommended.  

Well yesterday it showed up and I had to decide what to make as my first try at using one of these.  Yes I am not young and to the best of my knowledge I have never used a slow cooker or crock pot in my whole life. So decisions, decisions and more decisions. After going through some of my Pinterest boards that have a lot of Slow Cooker/Crock Pot meals I settled on some soup, better yet some Chicken Tortilla Soup.  Here is what the final soup looked like.  The avocados were cut a little large but trust me this tasted good.

The total prep time was only about 15 minutes and the cooking time was 2 hours.  The first thing I learned is that I need to pay better attention to time.  When I first read the recipe I thought it said 4 hours cooking time so I got started.  Then as I was cutting up the onions and the garlic, I saw that it said 2 hours total cooking time.  So what do you do when you have started 2 hours earlier than you needed to, stop, put the cut up onions and garlic in some small bags and take our dog for a walk.  So that's what I did.  Addis really enjoyed the walk since we went to a new park right down the street.

Anyway, the necessary ingredients are:

Salt and Pepper to taste.

1 1/4 pounds of chicken breast.  About 2 chicken breasts.

1 teaspoon canola oil.

1 medium onion, chopped.

2 cloves garlic, chopped. (see my note below)

2 cans diced tomatoes, 14.5 ounces each, undrained.

2 cans enchilada sauce, 10 ounces each.

Low-sodium chicken broth, 15 ounces.

1 can back beans, 15 ounces, undrained.

1 package frozen corn, 16 ounces, thawed.

1 tablespoon ground cumin.

1 tablespoon chili powder.

1 ripe avocado, pitted, peeled and diced.

5 corn tortillas cut into 3x1/2-inch strips.

Instructions for this great soup:

Season the chicken with salt and pepper to taste.  Pour the oil into the pot and turn the pot on STOVETOP Medium and heat the oil.  Once the oil is heated up place the chicken into the pot and cook for about 5 minutes on each side to brown.

While the chicken is being browned you could chop up the onion and garlic.  This is when I realized I had way to much garlic as you can see by the picture below. Before I go any further I have to explain my note on the garlic.  I had never used fresh garlic in the past so when I went into the store to buy it I asked the employee if what I had in my hand were 2 cloves of garlic.  He said yes and so on my way I went.  When I got home it seemed like a lot of garlic which you can see on my cutting board so here I go to Google.  What did I find out, well I had bought two heads of garlic, not 2 cloves.  Glad I found this out before I put it into the soup.

Once the chicken is browned take it out of the pot, put all the ingredients into the pot and mix very well.  Place the chicken back in the pot and turn in on SLOW COOK High for 2 hours.  Place the lid on and away it goes.

Once your 2 hours are up, take out the chicken and place it on the cutting board.  Using 2 forks shred the chicken, return the chicken to the pot and stir it all together again.

Grab yourself a couple of bowls and serve it.  You can also add corn tortillas and avocado.  I added both but my wife did not add the tortillas.

Overall my wife loved the soup.  The only two points she made is that it could of used a little more salt and it was kind of spicy with the chili powder.

I myself, not a soup eater thought it was very good also.  The one thing I have to remember in the future is that there are only 2 of us that I am cooking for so before starting I need to reduce the amount of the ingredients so instead of making enough for 6 I only make enough for 2.  Now we have leftovers for lunch for a couple of days, but it tastes good enough to be more than happy to have those leftovers.