KRLD Chicken Stew

Yesterday, it was really cold – like every other day around here, really – so I decided to make soup. While I was at home over Christmas, Mom made this great Mexican Chicken Stew for me, and she told me that she’d first heard the recipe on KRLD-AM, the Dallas all-news station where I worked for awhile as a news anchor. She used to make this in her Crock-Pot on Wednesdays, which is when she and Daddy had the day off from the drilling and filling of small-town dentistry, and he’d make the hour and a half drive to Ardmore, Oklahoma to check on our farm (ie make sure the cattle hadn’t jumped over the barbed wire fence and wreaked havoc on the wildflowers). When he’d come back home at the end of the day, she told me, the soup would be ready.

I was planning to make this recipe exactly like she did, in my new, still gleaming Crock-Pot, but I had leftover chicken from the day before, so I made the soup the old school way – right on the stove. It took just 30 minutes.

I tweaked this just a little bit – I added three cloves of garlic and one chipotle pepper and omitted the cayenne – but otherwise, the recipe is the same. If you choose to make it on the stove, just cook the onions and garlic first in some olive oil, then add the rest and cook for 30 minutes.

Be sure to squeeze a bit of lime on top before you eat this – it makes the soup incredibly bright, and gives this rustic stew a bit of elegance.

And see how cute it looks in my new French bowl?

KRLD Chicken Stew 
3 to 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 squash or zucchini, sliced thick
2 cups corn (roasted or canned)
1 large can tomatoes, diced
⅓ red bell pepper, chopped in 1/4 inch dice
⅓ yellow bell pepper
⅓ green bell pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne
sea salt and cracked pepper (to taste)
Layer chicken, onion, squash, corn, and tomatoes, adding spices between each layer.

Cook in your slow cooker for 5 to 6 hours on the low setting. 

Add can of diced tomatoes about half hour before end of cooking. Serve with tortillas and lime.