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!)

Crock Pot Adventure!

Tis the season!  Here's what's in the pot:

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots
half a red pepper
half a green pepper
4 or 5 chopped garlic cloves (did you know in spanish, they call them teeth?)
beef stew meat
1 sweet potato, chopped
3? small red potatoes, chopped
half a zuchinni, chopped
Red cooking wine (1/4 cup?)
Beef broth (1 or 2 cups?)

I added them in the order listed above, but saved half the garlic to put directly on top of the meat.  For some reason, I took the effort to brown the entire frozen slab of stew meat (it's chunks, but they were so frozen solid that they never broke apart), and then deglazed the pan with a tiny bit of red cooking wine and beef broth, and poured that into the crock over the beef.

Who knows what it will taste like, but it sure was colorful!  And gluten free!  And my 6 quart crock was quite full.

UPDATE:  It was really good!  The sweet potatoes and meat all fell apart when stirred, and made a nice thick, sweet stew.  I sprinkled a little bit of "pasta sprinkle" and black pepper on before serving.  It was ugly though, so no photo.

Easy and delicious cuban food!

I love cooking, but I never have enough time.  Which is why I love my crock-pot so much.  Husband loves my crock-pot too, because I use it to make him ropa vieja*!  I know I've probably mentioned this before, because it's so easy and I make it fairly often, but I don't think husband will ever get sick of it, so I'm ok with that.  I made it Monday and he's having it for dinner tonight, 4th night in a row, haha.  Here's how easy it is!  The list looks long, but it's just faking you out.  Plus, it will last a while.    You could also freeze it, but we always eat it all.

Ingredients

• Flank Steak
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato sauce
• 1 can of tomato paste
• Red Bell pepper, sliced
• Clove or two of garlic, minced
• Large onion, sliced
• Bay Leaf
• Cumin (tablespoon?)
• Oregano (teaspoon?)
• Salt and Pepper
• Wine, Cooking wine, or white vinegar - 1/4 cup(ish)

Directions

• Place garlic, onions, and peppers in bottom of crock-pot.
• Place flank steak on top of the veggies.  Sometimes I sear in the juices first, sometimes I don't.  I haven't noticed too much of a difference.  If you don't sear and it has any visible fatty portions, you should probably remove them.
• Add tomato paste, oregano, cumin, and bay leaf.
• Pour in the tomatoes, sauce and vinegar or wine.
• Cook for 4 hours on high, or 8 on low.   Longer is not a problem.  
• Pull out steak and place on a large plate.  Cut in half or thirds, against the grain (to make strips shorter when shredded).
• Using two forks, pull in opposite directions with the grain, and the steak should shred very easily.
• Mix shredded steak back in with tomatoey goop in crock pot.
• Salt and Pepper to taste (authentic would be lots of salt, but not so healthy), and serve over rice!  (or mashed plantains, or potatoes, or in a burrito, though cuban husband would be mortified by the potato and burrito suggestions) We usually have with rice, cuban black beans**, and sliced avocado.  Sour cream also goes nicely... as do scallions)

To make it more veggie heavy, you can add a bunch of shredded or diced carrots, and the flavor won't change much.  I've also heard apples work, though I haven't tried it.  You could also up the amount of peppers and onions, or use only half a flank steak (but don't tell my husband!).


*Husband would freak out if I served it as shown in this Wikipedia image.  Yellow rice and black beans can't be served together!  Silly Cuban food rules.  Or maybe I got the rules mixed up?  Husband?  Care to clarify?
 
** You can buy Cuban black bean soup in a can, but I make husband make the beans!  Recipe to come if I ever try my own hand at them...

Scraps for dinner!

I like to play a game called "What's in the fridge?"  Sometimes, this game overlaps with another one, called "What's in the freezer?"  I played a mix of the two this weekend!  I didn't take any pictures, since it was super ugly, but it was also super delicious!  Here's what I used:

Fridge:
1/2 a head of cabbage
1/2 a can of tomato paste

Freezer:
Cooked ground beef, crumbled (about a cup or 1/2 pound?)
Cooked italian sausage, diced (2 links?)
Super salty leftover stir fried egg plant (1/2 cup?)

Countertop:
1 onion
2 red potatoes

Instrucciones:

1. Chop onion, place in bottom of casserole or crock pot.
2. Dice potatoes, same.
3. Chop cabbage, same.  Mix the 3 together a bit.
4. Season with oregano, mrs. dash, herbes de provence, or whatever herby stuff you might have.
5. Salt and pepper too (unless you have super salty eggplant coming, like i did)
6. Spread around sausage, ground beef and eggplant
7. Mix tomato paste with water (about 1 cup total liquid) and pour over.
8. Put on lid, and bake at 350 for an hour or two, checking to make sure concoction doesn't dry out.  If it does dry out (like mine did after more than 90 minutes, husband neglected instructions to turn off oven when timer went off), rescue with tomato-y liquid!  I used a can of tomato soup.  

It was delicious, I win!  I like this game! Would also work just fine with uncooked meats, just make sure to cook long enough for them to come to a safe temperature.  Instead of tomato-y liquid, I bet broth would work... and instead of eggplant I imagine mushrooms would work well.  Maybe I'll try those substitutions next time I play!

First times

So everyone raves about these, but i never tried them until today. I don't know if it's lucky coincidence, but i will definitely be trying them a 2nd time!

I decided to put as many zero-effort items into the crockpot as i could find, and see how it came out. So i combined:

1/2 a bag of frozen chopped onions and green peppers
1/2 a bag of frozen chopped butternut squash
2 frozen chorizo (or so i thought, i think they were the similarly named portuguese sweet sausages)
2 frozen portabella asagio sausages
1 can of diced fire roasted tomatoes
1 can white beans
1 container of chicken broth
several turns of salt and pepper grinders
some (few shakes?) of oregano or italian seasoning, chili powder, paprika, and garlic powder
1 package frozen cheese ravioli

Combine everything except beans and ravioli, and cook for 6-8 hours on low. Add beans and ravioli with about 1 hour remaining, voila! I took the sausage out right before serving and chopped up, but it's pre-cooked. There are no rules. Served with some parmesan because i had some. mmmm! What should i call it? Crock-pot-sausagy-soupy-breeze?

Maybe it's not the tomatoes... i've also never ever before used frozen chopped onions and green peppers, frozen chopped butternut squash, nor either type of sausage. But who cares, it was one of the easiest meals i've ever made, and delicious! Almost like a really great minestrone... only with ravioli and sausage, haha.