Cooking with Beer – Chicken Tacos

We’ve had a bit of a Mexican food theme running around our house lately.  Or let me clarify that with Craig has an insatiable craving for Mexican food, me not so much.  He is pretty much addicted to anything that has that distinctive combination of garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, chili powder and hot peppers.  It doesn’t matter if they’re slathered on beef, pork or chicken.  Throw in some cheese, salsa and tortilla chips and he’s in heaven.

The Mexican food bug bit again.  Apparently the recent tamales and margarita skirt steak weren’t enough for him.  In fact, they may have just stoked the fires.  I contemplated the options and decided on tacos.  But these aren’t just any ol’ tacos, these babies get their flavor from slow cooking in beer.  Yep, beer.  Cooking the chicken in beer gives it a richer flavor and changes the flavors just enough that I really enjoy this Mexican dish.  It also makes the chicken really moist  and super tender.

Craig was surprised to come home and not find a skillet full of ground meat and some menagerie of spices.  The smells that fill the house are heady and cause you to start drooling almost immediately.  The beer builds up the chicken flavor so you can still taste the meat even through mounds of sour cream, salsa and cheese.

Relationship Advice

You don’t have to fight every battle to the death.  Sometimes you really do need to pick and choose your battles.  A relationship can’t go on for very long if every little thing your significant other does or doesn’t do is something you can’t deal with and ends up with screaming and shouting.  Small things like: he leaves the toilet seat up or she leaves her dirty clothes piled on the floor of the bedroom aren’t life or death issues.  They’re annoying, but at the end of the day no one is going to lose their life by falling into cold toilet water at 3 a.m. or he sees (and smells) a fer piles of dirty workout clothes strewn around the bedroom.  Now big things that need to be dealt with due to their severity would include things like: she has a shopping addiction with monthly expenditures exceeding her take home pay or he consistently puts in 70 hour work weeks and every weekend is spent with the boys and isn’t investing any time with her.  Things like these can cause a relationship to drift apart and need to be discussed, but if there are constant arguments about every little thing, the discussions about the more serious goings on will fall on deaf ears.

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• Tortillas (corn or flour)
• 8 Chicken Thighs (skin removed)
• 1 Medium Brown Onion (cut into 8 wedges)
• 4 Cloves Garlic
• 1 12 Ounce Bottle Newcastle Brown Ale (or other darker beer)
• 1 Lime (juiced)
• Salsa
• Cheese (shredded)
• Sour Cream
• Lettuce
• Green Onions (chopped)
• Tomatoes (diced)
• Olive Oil
• Kosher Salt
• Fresh Ground Black Pepper

Directions

Add chicken thighs to crock pot (slow cooker)and cover with beer, onion, garlic and lime juice.

Cook in slow cooker on low for 6-8 hours.

If bone in thighs were used, remove bones from meat.

Season contents of slow cooker with salt and pepper.  Stir to combine all of the ingredients.

Pour a teaspoon of olive oil into a skillet. When hot add 1 tortilla and heat until it starts to crisp up.  Then flip over and heat the other side.  Repeat with all tortillas.  (You can also use olive oil spray to coat the pan.)

Fill the tortilla with chicken and all of the usual accompaniments.

Related posts:

1. Lazy Chicken Tamales
2. Spice It Up: Soyrizo Black Bean Tacos and Missionary
3. Roast Chicken Part Deux
4. Crunchy Asian Chicken Salad
5. Get Ya Better Chicken Soup with Orzo and a Hint of Lemon (Guest Post)

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