This meal has become a staple in our home. It's a convenient meal to make because I just chop up some vegetables and throw everything into a Crock-Pot. The meal then cooks itself. What's even better is that I can use the chicken for more than one meal. After everything cooked up, I used half of the chicken for tonight's meal with the vegetables, and I froze the other half of the chicken which I will use when I make Arroz Con Pollo (Chicken and Rice). Plus, I put the chicken bones back into the crock and added some water, set it to low, and within an hour or so I'll have homemade chicken broth that I will freeze and use to make rice and other meals. Using a wole broiler/fryer chicken is definitely a great value!
I don't think that I make this meal the same way twice, but this is what I did when I put everything in the crock this morning:
Chicken In A Pot
Ingredients:
3 carrot sticks, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stocks, diced
4 small-medium potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
3lb broiler/fryer chicken
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano (I almost used the fresh oregano from my garden, but didn't feel like going outside to get any, so I settled for the dried version)
1/2 cup water
Directions:
Put vegetables into bottom of Crock-Pot. Add whole chicken. Top with seasonings & herbs. Slowly pour water over top of chicken. Cover; cook on low 8-10 hours or high 3 1/2-5 hours (use 1 cup water instead of 1/2 cup if using high setting).
I chopped up the vegetables and put everything into the crock this morning before heading out to work. Hubs didn't have to work today, so he was able to take the crock out of the fridge and turning it on about 10am to the low setting (one of these days I'll buy one of those Crock-Pots that has a timer, but for now I'll just rely on hubs if I use my crock in the middle of the week :). Everything was ready to eat at 6pm. The chicken was so moist and tender and easily fell off the bone. The veggies were full of flavor. My daughter refused to eat the carrots, but I taught her a trick to drink a sip of milk with a bite of carrot, and after trying that, she decided that she "loved" her carrots. Whatever works!
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I have made something similar to this, but with just chicken breasts. For some reason, I have a fear of whole chickens. I know I just need to take the plunge and try it out. It's hard for things to go wrong in a crock pot (although I have had a few disasters through the years, mainly because things have overcooked which...by the way, all happened in my programmable "Smart Pot" so the fancy crock pots with timers in my opinion are COMPLETELY over-rated! Plus, it only lasted a few years anyway before it burned out....I stick with the old fashioned dial ones now...)
ReplyDeleteI tend to overcook when I use my 3-qt crock. Even when I use the shortest recommended cook time, the small crock will overcook the meal if I don't watch out! I've never heard of the "smart" crocks frying up so quickly. How ridiculous. I may have to rethink buying myself one after all.
ReplyDeleteYou really should give the whole chicken a try. Just don't stuff the bird. Not a good idea if you use the crock-pot on low because then it may not fully cook the inside of the chicken. I've always had good results using a whole chicken. I'm not too fond of deboning a carcass (I hate that word "carcass"...uugghhhh) but it's hard to pass up the value of a whole bird. Especially when I can get them on sale or at Sam's Club. I can get two meals with the chicken, plus make tons of homemade chicken broth. This time, I let the chicken bones cook in the crock-pot overnight Tuesday night, and first thing Wednesday morning, I shut the crock off. After getting dressed, the broth had enough time to cool off. I strained out all the bones & veggies, then used a ladle to pour the broth into plastic containers. I got a total of 7 2-cup containers. That's a total of 14 cups of chicken broth!!! Definitely worth the disgust of handling chicken bones. :)