Mexican Haystacks

You may be familiar with "Hawaiian Haystacks" which are delicious and fun to eat.  You layer a bed of rice with chicken in a creamy sauce, and then top the whole shebang with your choice of things like cheese, pineapple, raisins, chopped and steamed veggies, peanuts.......So yummy.  Well, here is the Mexican version.  This recipe is done in a crock-pot and I tend to make it on Sundays.  I get the meat cooking in the morning and when we get home from church, the house smells fabulous and we're ready to eat.  Sheer Genius.  My sister-in-law Marianne gave me this recipe (thanks Girl!) and I've tweaked it just a bit to make it as healthy as possible.  Muy Bien!

Meat Sauce:
3-4 chicken breasts (I actually use a pound of chicken tenders)
1 15-oz can of Red Enchilada Sauce (I make my own, see recipe below)
1 packet of taco seasoning (try to buy a brand that doesn't contain sugar.  I use Wick Fowler's Famous Taco Seasoning Mix which only has a handful of ingredients and no sugar.  Whole Foods has it.)

Place all ingredients in a crock-pot and stir to combine.  Cook on high about 4 hours or low about 6 hours (if you're going to be cooking it longer, you can use frozen chicken breasts or tenders).  When ready to serve, shred the chicken with a fork.  Serve over rice (we use brown rice) and add any of the following toppings:

chopped tomatoes
chopped cilantro
cheese
sour cream (thinned with a little milk so it's easy to drizzle)
guacamole
shredded lettuce
salsa
Corn Salsa (recipe below)
etc.


Red Enchilada Sauce
This recipe comes from The Diet Rebel's Cookbook by Jillayne Clements and Michelle Stewart.  I prefer to make my own sauce since it's lower in fat and sugar. 

1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
14 oz. tomato sauce
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup water
1-3 Tbsp chili powder (depending on desired heat and flavor; I usually use just 1 Tbsp)
1 1/2 tsp evaporated cane juice (Sucanat)
1/2 tsp raw apple cider vinegar (I use Bragg's Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar, but you could use regular apple cider vinegar in a pinch)

Saute onion and garlic in oil until tender.  Add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer, covered, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  This may be pureed in a blender or left as is (I'm lazy so I don't bother to puree).

Corn Salsa

About 1 1/2 cups of frozen corn, thawed  (I  just eye-ball the amount)
1 diced red bell pepper
1 chopped tomato
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 can black beans, drained (I leave this out since my family likes it better that way)
Italian Salad Dressing (see below)

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to use.  (can be made the day before)

OK, so here's the deal on the salad dressing.  The original recipe calls for a dry packet of Italian salad dressing that you mix as instructed on the packet.  I wanted to healthy things up a bit since these packets have sugar and some other ingredients I don't love.  I discovered Bragg's organic Healthy Vinaigrette, a bottled dressing made with EVOO and a bit of honey.  Patricia and Paul Bragg have a whole line of healthy products which you can buy at Whole Foods and the like.  The only thing about this dressing is that it solidifies in the fridge, which is fine for storage.  But if I'm going to make this salsa, I take the dressing out of the fridge and bring it to room temp so it's pourable.

A few final notes:

For some strange reason, Mike doesn't like to use rice in his haystacks.  He'll eat a burrito with all of these same ingredients INCLUDING rice at Chipotle, so it's a mystery to me why he doesn't like the rice in this instance.  But we each have our quirks, right?  So I buy Fritos and he puts everything on those.

This recipe serves about 4, but you can double the meat sauce recipe easily.  This is also really fun for entertaining as guests can help themselves and tailor the toppings to their liking.