New Mom Survival - Crockpot Chicken Thighs!

Yesterday I explained how to very easily roast a whole chicken.  But what if you want something a little... saucier, with less raw-chicken-touching?  Easy!  Frozen chicken thighs are one of my best friends since having a baby.

It all started with this recipe, but as usual I didn't follow it very closely.  I didn't have any apricot preserves, so instead added about 1/4 cup of water and a handful of chopped dried apricots - turned out fabulous!!  Since then I've made a few variations (no soy sauce now that baby is soy-free), and have tried making up a few recipes of my own with varied success.  A few weeks ago I attempted thighs in homemade barbeque sauce, it worked out pretty well!  Tomato paste, garlic, molasses, and honey, mix up, add thighs, and cook for 8 hours!  I might add some vinegar next time, but i was pretty happy with it :)  Another time i added some curry powder and later mixed it with spinach, rice and coconut milk for a southeast-asian inspired soupy stew.  The great thing about chicken thighs is that they stay moist, and they're very adaptable.  And crockpot meals are forgiving, so if you don't measure very closely it's ok!

As a compliment to most of my chicken thigh meals, I plug in the rice cooker and make use of the steamer attachment for some carrot coins or green beans.  If you don't have a rice cooker, go ahead and add some carrots right into the crockpot with your chicken thighs, or stir in some baby spinach leaves last minute for an easy vegetable!

Back to blogging!

It's been a long hiatus, but I had an excellent excuse! Someone else required ALL of my attention for the fast few months, someone very demanding. And adorable. And complicated!

My excuse for not blogging

In addition to my own dietary struggles (colitis related - low fiber, gluten free, avoiding peanuts), I now have baby's dietary requirements... Which for the time being include presumed (hopefully temporary) allergies to dairy, soy, and eggs. What a challenge!! There was a 2 week period where I ate nothing but Home-roasted chicken and rice. And bananas - I had bananas and rice for breakfast. I lost a lot of weight... Look at the bright side, right? I've expanded my dietary horizons since then, cooking dinner many nights and even getting back into the world of grown ups - vacuuming occasionally, thinking about gardening, crocheting, reading, et cetera. Exciting things!

But to pay tribute to the food I survived on through the roughest time, here are some incredibly easy tips for making the most of chicken in your crockpot! So easy a mother of a newborn can do it!

Equipment:

• Big crockpot
• Small whole chicken (to fit in crockpot, sometimes called fryer chickens)
• Salt and pepper
• Couple of carrots
• Couple stalks of celery
• Optional: herbs, lemon, ginger, onion, garlic, etc.

Instructions for roasted chicken:

1. Thaw chicken if frozen.
2. Wash carrots and celery. Place in bottom of crockpot.
3. Rinse chicken inside and out and remove any innards. Optional: remove skin.
4. Season chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. If using any optional ingredients, stuff into body cavity or rub on now. I like to put a couple chunks of ginger and a lemon (poked with a fork) inside, and sprinkle lemon zest outside.
5. Place chicken on top of carrots and celery (to lift chicken up off bottom slightly).
6. Cover with crockpot lid and cook for 8-10 hours on low. No liquid needed!
7. Meat should be easy to remove with a fork and knife, no need for creepy picking of the chicken carcass.

Instructions for chicken stock:

1. Leave chicken carcass, vegetables, and drippings in crockpot. Remove anything too gross for your tastes, like a blob of fatty skin. And it's probably a good idea to remove any lemons, since lemon rind can be bitter.
2. Add any additional flavorings you like, such as fresh herbs or an onion (quartered).
3. Fill crockpot with cool water, cover, and cook 8-10 hours on low or overnight.
4. Ladle stock through a strainer and voila!

I like to roughly chop some chicken, carrots, celery and/or fennel and make some chicken soup with the broth! Throw in a bay leaf and some rice and you've got an easy homemade healthy meal! (tip - add a little sweet Italian sausage for a change of flavor!)

More than just chicken and rice

So I've been cooking a little bit again... but due to my situation the food has been so boring it's not worth writing about.  Until now!  I stumbled across something that turned out surprisingly good, good enough that I want to remember it and make it again!

I accidentally made rice taste like stuffing*.  Not bad, right?

Secret Ingredient Chicken and Rice Casserole

• 2 large-ish chicken breasts, cut into (roughly) bite-sized pieces
• 5 or so carrots - washed, peeled, and chopped
• 1 medium zucchini - quartered lengthwise and chopped
• 1.5 cups of white rice (you could probably use brown, but I had white)
• 1.5 cups leftover mushroom broth
• 1 cup water
• Olive Oil (1-2 tsp?)
• Salt (1/2 to 1 tsp? Husband likes salty rice)
• Random spices - I used about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon each of oregano, cardamom, and really old curry powder
• and the secret ingredient...  1 can of coconut milk!

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Place rice, oil, and salt in a large glass baking dish (i used 13x9 i think? the really big one).  Mix up until all the rice is coated with oil and salt.  Add more oil or salt as desired.
3. Add in other chopped up ingredients, and mix up.  Attempt to distribute evenly.
4. Mix coconut milk, broth, and water in a bowl and carefully pour over everything in the glass dish.  Everything should be just submerged - if you need more liquid add a little more water or broth.  (I was trying to save dishes and didn't quite mix them all first, i don't think it mattered much... but if i wasn't so lazy/making-things-up-as-i-went, i would have pre-mixed)
5. Sprinkle desired spices over the top, and place in oven.
6. Bake for 60-90 minutes, until chicken and vegetables are thoroughly cooked.

The chicken was done for me after an hour, but the carrots were still a bit crunchy.  I turned off the oven and left the casserole in there while i ran to the store, and when i came back the rice had soaked up all of the liquid and the carrots were just right.  The chicken had started to dry out, but only just, and still tasted great.  I have no idea why it tasted like stuffing... maybe the mushroom broth did it?  I should point out that there was  no coconut flavor, just lots of richness somehow. (I've heard coconut flavor can depend on the brand, i used Thai Kitchen Organic). Hopefully the good results of this experiment weren't a fluke, I'll definitely be trying it again!  This would also work well with other vegetables mixed in... I'm not very adventurous these days so I'll stick to carrots and zucchini for now.

*disclaimer - I had a cold and I'm pregnant, so my taste buds might be a little wacky.  Regardless of whether or not it really tasted like stuffing, I thought it was good and husband really liked it too!

Rawr!

I made another one, and it came out much better! Definitely will continue experimenting with this!

I'm a lion!  I have a tail, you just can't see it!

New fun!

 So my hobbies have turned more towards things that allow me to sit on the couch these days... and I was starting to get bored with baby blankets (all my friends are having babies too).  But when I was at the store buying more yarn the other day, I picked up a little book of animal patterns... this was so much fun to make!

It's supposed to be an elephant... but as husband says, it's a pig with big ears who told too many lies.

I gave him a silly face :)

 It was really easy to make all the pieces... not so easy to put them all together.  He's a little lopsided, because I ad-libbed (as usual) when I didn't have the right hook size for the pattern, and then ran out of one of the yarns.  Also, turns out I can't count and follow a pattern very reliably, so he's a little fatter than intended, and so are his legs.  And I purposely made his ears bigger, because he looked like a mouse with the recommended size!  All in all, he's got a lot wrong with him, haha, but it just adds to his character.  He's a great little elephant, I can't wait to give him to a deserving little kid!  And I can't wait to experiment with some more crocheted stuffed animals :)

In case you're interested, the pattern that I botched up came from this book.  Other amazon users have uploaded photos of their elephants... look much more like elephants than mine, haha.  But it's my first time!