Place the pearl onions on top of the celery.
Open the cans of salsa verde sauce and pour them over the pearl onions.
Open the can of diced green chilies. If there’s any liquid, you can add that to your stew. Then sprinkle the chilies over the top of the salsa verde sauce.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: CAUTION!!! If you use your fingers to sprinkle in the chilies, WASH YOUR HANDS IMMEDIATELY! If you touch your eyes without washing your hands, your eyes will burn and smart from the chilies.
Cover your slow cooker with the lid, plug it in, and cook it on LOW for at least 8 hours.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you cook on LOW in a slow cooker, the time is not that critical. You’ll need 8 hours of cooking time, but if you don’t get back home for 9 or 10 hours, that’s okay, too.
When you get home from work, give the contents of the slow cooker a good stir and then add the additional ingredients in this order:
Sprinkle the garlic powder over the top.
Sprinkle the onion powder over the top of the garlic powder.
Stir the contents of the crock again to mix in the ingredients you just added.
Add the two cans of mushrooms, liquid and all. Stir them in.
Sprinkle in ONE packet of gravy mix and stir that in. Reserve the 2nd packet of powdered gravy mix for later, if you need it.
Put the lid on the crockpot, turn it up to HIGH, and let the contents cook for another hour.
Right before you’re ready to serve, take off the lid of the slow cooker and taste the broth again. If it’s not thick enough, stir in the 2nd packet of powdered gravy mix, put the lid on again, and let it cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.
Hannah’s 4th Note: Some people like this stew with a dollop of sour cream with fresh salsa on top of the bowl. Have these bowl toppers handy on the table if your family likes them.
Hannah’s 5 th Note: If you invite Mike Kingston for dinner (or anyone else who likes things very spicy) make sure you have a bottle of Slap Ya Mama Hot Sauce on your table. If your guest is Mike, have a BIG bottle!
Serve the stew in bowls with a basket of hot crusty bread or Michelle’s Spicy Cheesy Corn Muffins as an accompaniment.
Yield: 6 to 8 large servings, unless you invite Mike. Then you’d better prepare a second crockpot.
CHEESY CHILI CORN MUFFINS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
enough packages of corn muffin mix to make 18 muffins (Michelle used 3 packages of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, the kind that makes 6 to 8 muffins per package—each package weighed 8.5 ounces.)
2 large eggs, beaten (just whip them up in a glass with a fork)
14.15 ounce net weight can of creamed corn (Michelle used Libby’s Cream Style Sweet Corn)
10 and ?-ounce net weight can of condensed cheddar cheese soup (Michelle used Campbell’s)
one 4-ounce net weight can of diced green chilies (Michelle used Ortega Diced Green Chilies)
8 ounces shredded cheese to sprinkle on top of your muffins before baking (Michelle used Kraft Mexican Style Four Cheese mixture of shredded cheeses—if you can’t find that, a mixture of Monterey Jack and Cheddar will do just fine)
Prepare your muffin pans by spraying the inside of the cups with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray, or lining them with double cupcake papers. You will need 2 regular-size muffin (cupcake) pans with 12 cups in each, or 2 jumbo muffin pans with 6 cups in each.
Pour the dry muffin mix into a large mixing bowl.
Add the beaten eggs, but let them sit on top of the muffin mix.
Add the creamed corn on top of the eggs, but again, don’t mix it in.
Add the condensed cheddar cheese soup on top of the creamed corn. Don’t mix quite yet.
Drain the can of diced green chilies and put them on top of the cheese soup.
Mix all the ingredients together. Continue to stir until everything is thoroughly incorporated.
Hannah’s 1st note: There will be some lumps in the muffin batter from the chilies and the corn. That’s perfectly fine. Just make sure there are no dry spots of muffin mix that haven’t been stirred into the batter.
Using a large spoon, fill the muffin cups three-quarters full.
Hannah’s 2nd note: If you’re using the jumbo muffin cups, divide the batter equally to fill the 12 large cups. They may be a little more than three-quarters full, but that’s all right. If you’re using the regular-size muffin cups, you may not have enough batter to fill all the cups in both pans three-quarters full. That’s okay. Just take out the cupcake papers in the empty cups so that you can save them for future use.
Once your batter is in the muffin cups, sprinkle the tops of the cups with shredded cheese. This will melt and turn golden as you bake your Cheesy Chili Corn Muffins.