the review: slow-cooker chicken with fall vegetables

We have had several meals lately that I swore I was going to review and now I can’t even remember what they were. If you recall, one of the reasons for starting this blog in the first place was to remind myself what recipes we have tried and liked and which failed or needed modification. It helps to actually use the blog for its purpose, you know. No matter. I’ll probably make whatever they were again and hopefully remember what I was supposed to say next time.

I do want to remember the slow-cooker chicken that we tried yesterday because it was so very simple and will make an excellent cold-weather meal. Unfortunately for us, it was not even the slightest bit cold yesterday. You win some, you lose some. But I have never cooked a whole chicken in a slow-cooker before and this was pretty fantastic. This recipe was from the October issue of Country Living (page 100), and try as I might, I could not find the darn thing online. I’ll keep looking. But until then, get yourself to the supermarket and pick up a copy. (We also made some cookies from this issue over the weekend – the spiced chocolate bats on page 96. I used Steen’s cane syrup instead of molasses because it was all I had on hand, but the cookies came out just fine. Definitely better on day one, unless you do what my kids did and crush them up into ice cream with caramel sauce on day two. Just saying.)

I will warn you that my chicken was larger than the recipe called for (6 pound vs. 4 pound) but was still a bit dry after less than the suggested 8 hours of cooking. Watch your chicken towards the end if you can. If you can’t watch your chicken, layer on the sauce because that was the saving grace for me last night.

I followed most of the directions for this recipe, coating the chicken with the seasoning mix, resting the chicken on the celery rib and onion pieces, then packing in all of the vegetables except the Brussels sprouts. I can’t stand soggy Brussels sprouts so these went in with about an hour and a half left to cook. Still too early in my opinion. Maybe add your Brussels sprouts with a half an hour left to go? Or just roast them in the oven with a bit of garlic and olive oil, then toss them in with the rest of your veggies when you serve.

I doubled all the vegetables for my family and this was a good choice. While it made the crock pot a bit tight, everything still cooked just fine. I will definitely make this recipe again during ski season. Yep, I said it. Ski season. That will be here before you know it.