Sunday, March 3, 2013

Eating Off One Chicken Forever

Crockpot chicken is all the rage these days.  I hopped on the bandwagon back in October and I've been pretty happy with it.  My mother and sisters are all over it too.  Sometimes, k-ster claims that it's dry, but I don't think so.  Plus, I use it 800 ways after I've made it, so he can't tell it's dry unless we're eating it as plain chicken.

There are two things I love about cooking it in the crockpot.  First, you can put it in and in less than 5 hours it's completely ready.  One of the things I've been doing it putting it in when I get home from school and letting it cook all evening, for use the next day.  I think if I set it to cook all day long, it would be a gelatinous mess by the time I get home at 5:30 or so!

The second thing I love is that because it's all so thoroughly cooked, I literally get every, single bit of meat off of it.  The bones literally fall away from each other and there's nothing left for meat when I'm doing.  When I do it in the oven, the meat never completely releases.

One complaint that I've heard is that it doesn't get crispy when you put it in the crockpot.  I have never, in my life, been excited about crispy chicken skin, so I don't really care.  However, tonight's chicken in the crockpot browned up  and crisped up like it was its job.





You can see in this picture that the legs and wings had fallen right off when I scooped it out of the crockpot.

Tonight, we had chicken with stuffing and broccoli.  I had made French bread in the bread machine last week, but it was a total disaster.  It didn't rise properly and and it was a thick, hard mess.  I almost threw it out, but my sister said to freeze it to use later for croutons or bread crumbs.

Tonight, I took it out and cut it up to make stuffing.


You can tell by some of these pieces just how wrong it was for French bread.  I can't even tell you what went wrong but it was wrong from the get go.

I toasted the bread for about 15 minutes at like 415 degrees.  I just wanted it to dry out a little bit.  I cut up a yellow onion, 3 stalks of celery and mixed them with some butter, thyme, dried parsley, salt and pepper.  I didn't have any poultry seasoning, so that's what I had on hand.  I mixed them up and added about 1 cup or more of chicken broth.  My stuffing is never very moist and stuck together like many people's but it's edible and k-ster enjoys it like I do.





I baked it at 350 for 20 minutes in this pan with the cover on it, to try to encourage the moisture to build up.  Then I took off the cover and let the top crisp up for another 15 minutes.  There was still some liquid at the bottom, but it wasn't all mashed and stuffing-like.  K-ster says it's because I put too much celery and it's too big.  I love celery for the crunch and the flavor, but he doesn't, so he fusses when I put it in things. 

Oddly, it didn't make  him not eat it, he just pulled out the celery.

When I do a crockpot chicken, I can usually get 3 meals out of it, for the two of us.  I can't remember the weight, but I'm thinking a few pounds.  Maybe 5?

From this one, we ate the breast meat as pieces of chicken with some sides the first night.

I made chicken salad for lunches this week.

I made chicken soup for lots of meals for me.  K-ster isn't a fan of soup because, he claims, it's not a meal.  He doesn't want to drink his meals.  I, on the other hand, could eat chicken soup every, single day for lunch.  I LOVE IT.  The only part I dont' love is heating it in the microwave and it's either way too hot or not hot enough.

The last time I did a crockpot chicken, I made some chicken sloppy joes one night and instead of making chicken salad, I put barbeque sauce with some cut up pieces and made a BBQ chicken salad.

When I use the chicken in dishes like these, if it's dry, it soaks up moisture from whatever it's mixed with (mayo, soup, BBQ sauce, etc).

I don't like it when people say "and we ate off that chicken/turkey all week" because all I can picture is the family standing around gnawing on the carcass all week.  However, when you do a crockpot chicken, you can indeed, eat off that thing for days.

You just won't be gnawing on the carcass because there's pretty much no carcass left!

Linking here and here and here     

5 comments:

  1. I love the way meat cooks in the crockpot. Roasts come out so tender, and you're right there is so much less waste.

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  2. You my friend are a girl after my own heart! I'm in love with Crockpot cooking, especially in the winter. It's soooooo easy. There's nothing better than coming home to the smell of dinner cooking in the crockpot!

    Looks like you made a yummy one!

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  3. Crock Pots and slow cookers are the best!!! =0) BBQ chicken salad sounds great.
    ~Kim
    http://2justByou.blogspot.com
    New GFC follower from Meet & Greet - thanks for joining us!

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  4. That's how we've been cooking our chickens too. I love the chicken broth you get after it's cooked. It's like a free ingredient just appears! We 'eat off' it for several days too!

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  5. I haven't attempted a whole chicken in the crock pot yet, but I do cook chicken breasts all the time...for chicken salad, with bbq sauce for sandwiches or to mix in mac n cheese, or with a ready made bottled marinade to serve over rice or quinoa. I love the crock pot!

    I am getting ready to post about making cheesecake it in last night on my page!

    ReplyDelete

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