Chicken and More Flautas

This recipe has quickly become a favorite of family and friends around here.  It was very difficult the first time I did it.  I read this from a recipe that said it would take a total of 45 minutes.  WRONG!!!  It took about an hour and a half.  However, the next time I did it, I cooked the chicken in the slow cooker.  This let the hardest part of the meal cook all day.  So, I'm going to show the recipe using a slow cooker.  You can cook the chicken in a pot on the stove but it made my life so much easier to cook the chicken in the slow cooker.  You could also easily make the flautas with different ingredients.  I've thought about doing a bean, rice and cheese flauta or a shredded beef/pork or a ground beef/turkey this way.  But for this, I will give ingredients and instructions to make 10 flautas.  Five flautas are spinach and chicken and five flautas are chicken and salsa.  I can think of several different varieties to try later.

Ingredients:
1lb. boneless, skinless chicken (I've used breasts and tenders.  The original recipe used thighs.)
1½ bottles of your favorite beer (chicken stock works too, especially for corn and gluten free;  this would be a little over 3 cups.)
3 cups water
½ tsp. paprika
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. cumin
½ tsp. chili powder
1 cup baby spinach, chopped
5 large burrito size tortillas (homemade for corn free, I am currently working on a recipe for this)
oil for greasing the pan
salsa, sour cream, guacamole, queso for dipping

Directions:
To cook the chicken, put the chicken in a slow cooker.  Pour in the beer/stock and water.  If it doesn't cover the chicken, add more beer/stock or water.  Cook on low for 6 hours.
Now for the flautas!  Preheat oven to 450°F. Shred the chicken.  I used two forks to do this.  You could also use a blender/food processor but that tends to pulverize rather than shred.  Mix together the the chicken with the spices/seasonings.  In a small saucepan, pour ¼ cup of the liquid in which you cooked your chicken into the pan.  On low heat, cook the spinach in this pan until wilted.  If you like extra spice, you can also include a seeded, chopped jalapeno in the pot with the spinach.  We don't do spicy in our house, so I left this out.  Coat a cookie sheet with oil.  Cut the tortillas in half.  On five of the tortilla halves, spread a line of chicken on the long edge of the tortilla half.  Spoon a little spinach mixture on top.  Spread some shredded cheese over that.
Like this:

Now roll from the long, cut edge of the tortilla half.  Put the flauta on the oiled cookie sheet, seem side down.  Do this for five of the tortilla halves.  For the other five, spread chicken just like the others.  Then top with your favorite salsa.  (We use One the Border mild salsa.  I love the salsa in the store, not so much in the restaurant.)  Then top with shredded cheese (unless corn/dairy free) and roll up just like the others.  Put the flautas in the oven for 5-10 minutes, until they are crispy and golden brown on the edges.  Serve with salsa, sour cream, guacamole, queso or whatever you prefer.

Pictures:

Recipe modified from HERE.