Receta Italian Style Chicken
I found this recipe in the Food section of my newspaper. It's a keeper!
Italian Style Chicken
Ingredients:
- 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- 1-1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
- 3/4 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp. coarse salt
- 1/4 tsp. black pepper
- 1 large thinly sliced onion
- 1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2 T quick-cooking tapioca
- 2 cans (15 oz.) rinsed cannellini beans
- 1 10-oz. pkg. frozen spinach, thawed
- 1/2 cup fresh basil torn into small pieces
Directions:
Place chicken in a 4-quart or larger slow cooker and sprinkle with Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Scatter onion over chicken.
Stir together tomatoes, broth and tapioca; pour over onions.
Cover and cook on high 4-1/2 hours or on low 6-1/2 hours.
Stir in beans and spinach; cook 30 minutes more on low. Stir in basil and serve.
The flavors in this were so good together! It turned out soupier than I was expecting, but I think that was because I used pearl tapioca instead of instant - it's what I had - and I think I messed it up by soaking it in hot water instead of cold. Looking back on it, I could have just mixed the tapioca with the cold broth and tomatoes and let it soak in that overnight - since I mixed this up the day before and then cooked it in the morning. Either way, I'll try it again, whether with instant tapioca or the same kind - to see if there's a difference. It didn't really matter, because it tasted great. I just cooked up some fettuccine and served it with that and some sliced sourdough bread.
The original recipe called for bone-in chicken thighs, but I read it wrong and got the boneless thighs out of the freezer. I don't really like boned chicken in crockpot recipes because it ends up falling apart, and you always have to be on the lookout for bones. So, I stuck with the boneless. It was great, because it did fall apart, and there were pieces of chicken all through. I cooked it on high most of the time, and probably got closer to the 6-1/2 hours than the 4-1/2.
I used Great Northern beans, which I cooked in my crockpot, instead of the cannellini beans - because that's what I had. The original recipe called for 1/2 cup sliced black olives instead of the spinach, but at least one of the people who would be eating this doesn't like olives, so I left them out. And the spinach? The original recipe didn't call for it, but it just seemed like it should have spinach - so I added it. I didn't actually measure, but a 10-oz. package ought to be about right. You can add olives instead of the spinach or along with the spinach.