Crock Pot Chicken Fajitas and my little Dennis the Menace!

We always joked in our family that our second daughter was a little Dennis the Menace. 1993 Walter Matthau version of the movie. Not the old original. Not the cartoon, and not the horrible sequels that followed. Just the cute little blonde haired boy in the 1993 movie. Not only did she resemble a girl version of Dennis, but she was sneaky. She got into a little mischief and sometimes was up to no good. This lasted until our youngest daughter came along and she easily claimed the title of Dennis the Menace. Every day she comes up with ways to be full of mischief that I never knew existed! Sometimes she says the most clever, smart a$$ comments that I have to hide my laughter because I don’t want to encourage her. She has been enrolled in her sisters’ apprentice program for sassiness, boldness, and up to no good mischief and I think she’s at the top of her class for sure! One area which Mae just can’t seem to stay out of trouble is the bathroom. She has this thing for water, and messing in water, pouring it in different containers, which leads into emptying out the contents of the containers just so she can fill, empty and fill them up with water. Meanwhile, the bathroom floor is all wet, there are traces of her little handiwork everywhere and I’m sure our neighbors are used to the screeching of her name, followed by “What did you do?” She has been in time outs, had toys taken from her and I try to watch her like a hawk, but she is sneaky. And she is fast! In her latest bathroom menace, she decided that daddy’s hair products were really fun to smear all over the mirror. Well, what’s more fun that bringing her sister’s toothbrush into the mix? Not just a regular toothbrush, oh no. It’s one of those vibrating spin brush things so the excitement must have really picked up when she used the toothbrush to paint the hair product all over the mirror and counter. She rinsed the toothbrush and placed it back in the cup so no one would notice. That evening when our oldest went to brush her teeth, there was an immediate scream of horror at the awful taste on her toothbrush. She thought it was soap, which Mae has used as her weapon before, but this time it tasted different and wouldn’t wash out like the soap had done before. I smelled it and knew right away what she had used as her “paint.” I ended up throwing the toothbrush away since we just couldn’t get the horrible taste out of the bristles. But somehow, I managed to throw the wrong one away since my daughter and husband’s brushes were identical (they just kept them in separate areas to keep them straight). So my daughter is all better with her new toothbrush and my husband says his tastes like hair stuff so he had to throw it out too. Lovely. Two toothbrushes into the garbage.

Speaking of garbage, when I went to empty the bathroom garbage the other night, I lifted the garbage filled reused grocery store bag out of the plastic garbage can and the bag was filled 1/3 of the way up with water. I have no idea how it was not leaking everywhere or how I lucked out not to use a bag with a hole that time, but it held the water, which had a lovely grayish tint to it. It matched my charcoal face wash perfectly and when I smelled it, oh go figure, it smelled like my face wash. And now my face wash is now almost empty! Insert the screams here! I couldn’t help but think of that Dennis the Menace scene where Dennis is in Mr. Wilson’s bathroom and he refills his nasal spray with mouthwash and his mouthwash with Pine-Sol cleaner and so on. This is before the whole denture mishap. I won’t give it away if you haven’t seen the movie. Please watch it. If you have little kids, watch it with them and they will love it. When I saw that my contact lens case had been tampered with, I was scared to put in my lenses. I wasn’t sure what she had filled my case with or done with the contacts. I hope this is just a phase and she will grow out of it, or one day learn that she’s going to get into trouble. She’s not good at hiding her evidence and usually she confesses to her crime without much prying, but there are times where she will deny it until she’s blue in the face like the latest toothbrush incident.

You may have seen recipes and videos floating around for crockpot fajitas. It’s not a new concept, and I didn’t not come up with the idea. I tried it for the first time, played around with the spices until I was satisfied and it was great. This is definitely something to make on a busy day, or in our case a Sunday when I don’t feel like making a big meal. Some days, there are way more important things to be doing like tackling those never-ending pesky fallen leaves, or the mountains of laundry, or napping. Did I mention napping? This meal took less than 10 minutes to prep including chopping toppings and the slow cooker did all the rest. Give it a try!

Crock Pot Chicken Fajitas

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs boneless chicken breasts (I only used about half of the package pictured above).

1-2 onions, sliced into strips

Red, Orange, Yellow, or Green peppers of your choice sliced into strips.

1 can diced tomatoes with green chiles

Fajita Seasoning:

1/4 teas ground chipotle chile powder

dash cayenne pepper

1 teas ground cumin

1 teas garlic powder

1/2 teas paprika

1/4 teas salt

1/4 teas pepper

If you like the blend of spices above, you may want to make a big batch and keep in an old spice shaker so it’s all ready to go the next time you make fajitas or any other dish you want a fajita flavor.

Flour tortillas

Fajita Toppings of your choice

Directions:

Slice your onion and peppers.