Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Crock Pot Chicken and Veggies!  


I have been working a TON but I refuse to give up my gold-medal standard of eating and nourishing my family....so here's a quick thing I threw together, and to my happiness (and dismay), what was supposed to be a couple of meals got gobbled up until there was just a bit of chicken left over...We just couldn't stop eating it!!!  I'm sorry to tell you that I don't have exact measurements for this one, cuz I just threw stuff in the pot.  But I do believe that whatever you come up with will be equally tasty.  This isn't baking, after all.  You can add as much or as little as you like!

Ingredients:
3 pounds of boneless chicken (I wanted thigh meat so bad, but Trader Joe's was all out.  So we used breast meat.  If you use white meat, add a couple of tablespoons of your favorite fat, so it doesn't dry out.  I used bacon fat...cuz...BACON!)

10 chopped gold potatoes

7 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped (I got the organic ones from Trader Joe's that are purple and orange and yellow and red.  They are so colorful and super sweet.)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

a bunch of sage, coarsely chopped

one red onion, diced (or one yellow onion.  or white.  who cares?)

juice from one lemon

Trader Joe's garlic salt (in the grinder), or garlic salt, or salt, or nothing if you're boring

Penzey's Forward Spice (a lovely mix of pepper and other flavorful stuff)

Directions:
There's no wrong way to do this.  Put everything in the pot.  I layered the bottom with the onion and garlic, then seasoned the chicken breasts generously with Forward and garlic salt, put them on top of the onions and then threw some sage on top of that, then tossed in the potatoes and threw sage on top of those and sprinkled more Forward and garlic salt, and then placed the carrots on top (rainbow!) and drizzled the lemon juice over it all as if it were delicious hot fudge.  Then I realized I forgot the fat, which I NEEDED cuz breasts get sooooo dry, so I scooped some out and dolloped them on top of the whole mess.  I let it run on low starting at 6:30am and got home at 6pm, and it was done.  The chicken shreds up nicely with a fork.  It probably only needed 10 hours.  Or less time if you do it on the high setting.  But that's the beauty of crockin'.  You can be late  and it's still super fab.  And who doesn't LOVE super fab after a long day of work?  Pair it up with a nice glass of wine and your night is pure magic.  xxoo