So, you may or may not have noticed that this post is a day late and there is a very good reason for that.

We had a potato disaster.

As with most of my slow cooker recipes, I research the dish that I want to make and adjust them to our tastes and the fact that my Crock Pot cooks things a little quicker than a conventional slow cooker. All of the recipes for chicken and chorizo stew varied their cooking time between 8 and ten hours on low, so I figured 4 hours on high in my Crock Pot would be plenty. However, after 4 and a half hours on high, the potatoes were still rock hard! In fact, the dish wasn’t actually properly edible until about 9.30pm, by which time we’d declared it a disaster and gone to get fish and chips! The girls needed to eat and of course, all of this weeks shopping was geared toward slow cooked meals, so a takeaway was the only option.

However, once the stew WAS cooked, it was totally delicious. We’ve saved it for dinner today and I’m so glad we did, rather than abandoning it altogether. The chorizo has released its smoky flavour into the dish and broth around the meat and veg was rich and warming. Our first two dishes were things which were made to go with non-slow cooked accompaniments, but this was a true one pot meal, with the protein, carbs and veg all cooked together, which is what the essence of slow cooking is about for me.

Here’s how we made it:

Chicken and Chorizo Stew

7 Day Slow Cooker Challenge - Chicken and Chorizo Stew Print Prep time 10 mins Cook time 8 hours Total time 8 hours 10 mins A slow cooked stew with smoky chorizo and tasty chicken. Author: Jayne Crammond Recipe type: Slow Cooker Cuisine: Spanish Serves: 4 Ingredients 600g chicken breast, cubed

One onion, diced

450g potato, peeled and cubed

250ml chicken stock

2 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes

2 tsp chili powder

200g chorizo, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

1 green pepper, sliced

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced or grated

1 tbsp tomato puree

30g black olives Instructions Place all of the ingredients (apart from the olives) into the slow cooker Stir well Cook on high for 6-8 hours (depending on your slow cooker!) Add olives around 30 minutes before you're ready to serve Serve with crusty bread and sour cream 3.5.3208

I must admit, I often avoid dishes with potato in them as I’ve had a disaster like this before; the one and only time I cooked my lamb stew in my Crock Pot, the potatoes didn’t soften very well and I put it down to the fact that the pot was just too full, so the heat didn’t permeate as well as it could have. This stew was far less voluminous and the potato was the only root veg, so I thought we’d be fine, but alas not! I think the moral of this tale is to always give yourself PLENTY of time for dishes with potato to cook…I’d actually be tempted to put this on at about 8am in future, just to be sure it was completely cooked, but the effort would be worth it as the stew tastes fabulous!

Have you been slow cooking this week? Don’t forget to blog about it and link up below.

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