Tinga Tostadas

Ingredients:

• 6 LB on the bone chicken thighs
• 3 cup water
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 4 roma tomatoes
• 1 LB tomatillos, husked and washed
• 1 jalapeno chile, stemmed and halved lengthwise
• 3 large cloves garlic, peeled,
• 1/4 cup adobo sauce
• 2 dried chipotle chiles
• 2 large onions
• 1 TB vegetable oil
• 1 tsp whole dried Mexican oregano

To serve:

• Corn tortillas, fried to make tostadas
• Diced avocado

Directions:

1. Cover the chipotles with hot water.
2. Combine the chicken, water, and salt in a crock pot and simmer for 4 hours.
3. Remove the chicken, run under cold water until cool and then remove the skin and bones and break the chicken into large chunks.
4. Reserve the chicken broth for another use.
5. While cooking the chicken make the salsa.  Cover the tomatoes, tomatillos, and jalapeno with water,
6.  Bring to a boil and then simmer about 5 minutes.
7.  Drain and transfer them to a blender along with the garlic, the adobo sauce the chipotles, and the salt.  Blend until fairly smooth.
8. Slice the onions, combine with the oil and oregano and cook in the microwave 5 to 10 minutes until they are soft.
9. Combine the cooked chicken, the salsa (I only used half the salsa and froze the rest for another use), and the onions in the slow cooker and cook for another 2 to 4 hours on low.
10. To serve, pile the chicken mixture on tostadas and top with avocado chunks.

This recipe came from Deborah Schneider's "The Mexican Slow Cooker"--Although, to be fair I did make several changes.  (she uses 2.5 LB boneless and skinless chicken thighs and only 1 cup of water.  I changed that because I love getting a nice broth.  She also used chipotles in adobo, where I used my home made adobo and dried chipotles.  My cooking method was also different). I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.

I ended up with enough chicken that we ate these tostadas for 2 days.  There is still half of the chicken left today so I will be using it to make pozole along with the leftover chicken broth.  Which should end up stretching my $6 chicken thighs to 4 days!