Crock Pot Madness- Arroz con Pollo

Tonight's dinner was a sort of hit.

I know what to do to make this better. First of all, I started by throwing some chicken (frozen) tenderloins in the crock pot with a a little bit of garlic powder and cumin. I cooked those for an hour on low, only because I got distracted and had no idea what I was going to add with them.
I found a very sad looking sweet potato in the potato drawer and chopped it up (throwing away about 1/2 of it that was soft and growing.)
I went to research cooking rice in the crock pot and left the sweet potato for about an hour.
I added 1 cup of rice, 1 can of Rotel, and 2 cups of water.
Again walking away for a few hours.

To serve I chopped cilantro and stirred it in to the rice mix. Then crumbled up some queso fresco on the top (because we had some.)

Rhayn liked it but asked for less green chiles next time (using a can of Rotel means I can't really tweak that!), Gwen only ate the chicken.

What would I do differently?
1. I'd either leave out the chicken or sweet potato. If I left out the chicken and used the sweet potato I would add a can of rinsed black beans (maybe for meatless Monday?)

2. We made a dish that tasted a lot like this at the Cook-a-thons. The flavor came from a jar of Herdez salsa and Marinara sauce. If I were making this for more than just myself and the girls I would totally use some sort of salsa and marinara sauce combo because that packs a lot of flavor.

3. I think I'd prefer some sharp cheddar on this instead of the queso fresco, it was lost in the other flavor. Or some pepper jack would be awesome.

The rice was well cooked after about 2 hours in the crock. That is good to know. This dish would probably only take about 2 1/2 or 3 from start to finish IF I knew what I was making from the get go.

Verdict? We'll make this again.