No Fool Back to School Meals: A Linky Party

{Photo borrowed from Vintage Victuals. Her Salsa Chicken recipe looks delish!}

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Happy Labor Day y'all! I hope this day finds you all not laboring too much...which brings us to this post.

As much as I love food and actually enjoying cooking, it's the repetition that gets me. I wish I could just cook when I felt like it. And I wish I could leisurely sauté and sashay around my kitchen, serving up romantic meals like they feature on the cover of Food & Wine.

But when real life comes calling about 6:00 every evening, I am faced with the task of feeding a family of 5 for the third time that day...and I am seriously uninspired.

So let's inspire each other with some easy meals that we can throw together in the crock-pot each morning or effortlessly assemble later in the day.

For the back-story of this post, click here.

I'll go first.

Salsa Chicken has been my go-to meal for years now. If you have a baby and need a meal, I'll probably bring you this with all the fixins. If you come to my house for dinner, I'll probably serve this meal. My kids love it and it's so easy they can actually make it. And once you add all the yummy toppings, it's tasty and interesting enough for refined grown-up palettes.

Here's the "recipe":

* Desired amount of boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins
* Desired amount of jarred salsa
* Optional: canned diced tomatoes and/or black beans to supplement salsa

(Example ratio: I use a 2.5 - 3.0 lb bag of breasts or tenderloins, combined with 2 jars of salsa, 24 oz. or so, a can of diced tomatoes, & a can of black beans.) Dump ingredients in a crock pot or just a large saucepan on the stove. Cook chicken until done. Shred chicken.

Serve chicken mixture over rice with toppings of choice: cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado. You can also roll it up in a burrito or serve it over tortilla chips.

Definitely make plenty of this! It's great leftover and you can even make two totally new meals from it. It's fantastic as quesadilla filling. Or, if you're in the mood for a yummy Mexican soup, try this: Take leftover chicken mixture, add some chicken broth or part broth / water depending on how much you have. Sprinkle in fresh cilantro, avocado, lime juice {if you have it} and a big scoop of leftover rice. You will have an amazing soup identical to the one my favorite local Mexican restaurant serves. Top soup with crunched up tortilla chips, shredded cheese, a dollop of sour cream, etc.

And there you have it: One ridiculously easy dish served four different ways!

This is the first time I've done a linky party. If you have a blog and want to link us to a recipe post or you want to do a post for this occasion, great! Link up. Just click on that little blue Cookie Monster looking icon at the bottom of the post and it will walk you through the steps. It takes 5 seconds. Make sure you link to the complete url address of your post, not to your general blog address.

If you don't have a blog, just leave your recipe for us in the comment section. And if you've never commented, now's your chance to de-lurk and introduce yourself {and your recipe.} It's easy. Just set up an account with blogger. All you need is a username and password.

My hope is that we can all get a few new tried and true recipes from real families that we can work into our own rotation of meals.

Here's a couple of recent resources I've found that are worth checking into:

• Free downloadable e-book from Money-Saving Mom: Smart School Time Recipes {breakfast, snacks, etc.} that are healthy and frugal.
• $3 downloadable e-book from The Grocery Shrink: Slow & Savory Suppers {36 slow cooker recipes that are tasty, easy, healthy, and affordable.} I love this little recipe book!
  

Bon Appétit!