Things have been a bit hectic in the Mum’s the Word house since Sausage went back to school; first, the girls were poorly (tonsilitis), then I was poorly (gall bladder) and then the car decided to go kaput, leaving us unable to make regular trips to the shops, so we were living on what we had in the cupboards and as a result, my slow cookers have been rather neglected! Yesterday, I decided that I needed to get back into slow cooking again with something completely new, so I tried a recipe that I’ve been seeing on Facebook for a while and thought I’d share it here. I’m struggling with a succinct name for the whole dish, but it basically consists of chicken stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese on a kind of slow-cooked ratatouille concoction! Here’s how we made it:

Stuffed Chicken with Slow Cooker Ratatouille Print Prep time 10 mins Cook time 4 hours Total time 4 hours 10 mins Chicken breasts, stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese, slow cooked on a bed of ratatouille. Author: Jayne Crammond Recipe type: Slow Cooker Cuisine: Mixed Serves: 4 portions Ingredients 4 chicken breasts

1 tub cream cheese

12 slices of chorizo

2 medium onions

1 green pepper

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

1 punnet mushrooms

300ml passata

2 tsp smoked paprika

New potatoes, to serve Instructions Chop your onions, peppers and mushrooms and place in the bottom of your slow cooker Add the paprika to the passata and pour the passata over the veg mix Take your chicken breasts and slice ¾ of the way through the breast diagonally Open the flap in the chicken breast and stuff with 1 tablespoon of cream cheese and 3 slices of chorizo Close the flap over the stuffing and and place on top of the veg and passata in the slow cooker Cook on low for 4 hours Serve with new potatoes or side of your choice (would work well with sweet potato wedges, too!) 3.5.3208

The end result was wonderful – the veg and passata were tender and fresh-tasting, while the cheese and chorizo gave the chicken a creamy, smoky quality which went really well with the ratatouille. Sausage wasn’t a huge fan because she hates mushrooms but it was a winner with the rest of us and will definitely be made again. It would go well with a number of different sides too, making it a pretty versatile, easy-to-make dish and I’m also pretty sure it contains several of your 5-a-day. Let us know what you think!