I struggle with quick and easy meals that can be done in the morning, or assembled quickly after work. I had been using a ton of prepackaged entrees but this was killing my budget and not really doing what I needed. With Bev, evening is the end of a long day and comes with a new set of challenges.
Chicken in a Pot
1. Ball up some aluminum foil and put it in the bottom of your crock pot. What you are trying to do is to raise the chicken off the crock pot floor and out of the juices. Then, spray the inside with some type of cooking spray (helps with cleanup).
2. I have a 4 lb chicken. I pulled out the giblets and removed the skin. (I am saving this for broth). Rinsed this guy and dried him off. I grabbed a big bowl, added some paprika, pepper, garlic salt, and seasoning salt, mixed this stuff up, stuck the chicken in this bowl and gave him a spa treatment. (Inside and out).
3. After this was done, into the crockpot.. In my crockpot, we are going to go low for 8 hours. Since everybody has a different guy, this will vary. You need to hit 180 dark/165 white for this to be safe.
Wrap Up
1. I should have been more aggressive with the seasoning. This is the only color the bird will have, I needed to dress him up a little more. He was still crazy yummy.
2. I overcooked him. Next time, I will shoot for about 10 below safe and let him get there without any heat. (I think if I had pulled him out and set him on a plate about 45 minutes before, he would have gotten there without any crock pot help.)
3. Once I pulled him out (he was falling apart), I added about 8 cups of water to the juices, all of those parts from the prep, plus the bones, an onion, some celery and carrots, and kept the party going. [At some point later tonight, will strain this for broth.]
I also tried scalloped potatoes in the other crock pot. Spray the crock pot with type of cooking spray. Layered sliced potatoes and onions for a couple of layers. I mixed butter, flour, evaporated milk, and random grated cheese in the food processor and poured it over the top with some salt/pepper/red chili flakes. Cook this guy until the potatoes are done (3 hour or so on high, 6 hours on low in my crock pot. You want the potatoes fork tender.) These had a good flavor but the sauce was pretty lumpy. Next time, will make the cheese sauce on the stove and layer this with the potatoes/onions and add some cheese between the layers. This may end up going in the blender and turning into loaded potato soup.
Because I was having a great time hanging out it the kitchen, I made pickles with the sad cucumbers in the fridge with yet some more onion, and bread crumbs from the last of the bread I made last week.
