Crock Pot Adventures: Part 1

After spending hours on Pinterest (you know you do it too..) I found several pins that I decided to try... namely crock pot pins.

The main challenge I had in finding recipes to try, is that my husband doesn't like warm liquid... aka soups, stews, coffee, tea, etc.... He might do hot chocolate, but he'd much rather have some regular chocolate milk.

As you may know, most recipes for crock pots have something to do with stews or soups. This is why it took me so long to find a handful of recipes. I had to find things that had meat, but that can be combined with a salad or some veggies, or anything with pasta.

My other challenge, is that whatever I am cooking in the crock pot needs to be put in by 6:30am and we wont be able to eat it until about 6 or 6:30 pm. As you can imagine... there aren't many recipes that need slow cooking for 12 hours.

In come my brand new crock pot! It has a special setting that adjusts the cooking temperature to cook your food perfectly for the number of hours you need. The only catch is that it counts on you choosing a recipe that has a cooking time of 6-8 hours on low, or 4-6 hours on high.

So the first recipe I found was Lemon Rosemary Chicken. (Let me just say that it smelled absolutely fabulous as I was prepping it!) When I got home, the whole apartment smelled wonderful! After trying it, my only adjustment would be to cook it a little less, or inject it (like a turkey at Thanksgiving) with something to keep the moisture in. It literally fell off the bone, but was a little dry.

(I wish I would have taken a picture of it done, but the hubby decided to dig right in ;))

The recipe is very simple. Here's what you need:

A whole chicken

One Lemon

A few bunches of rosemary

Salt and Pepper to taste

A whole head of Garlic

Rinse the chicken, inside and out. Rub it down with a mixture of salt and pepper. Place the chicken in crock pot. Separate garlic cloves and place in and around the chicken. Slice up lemon and place in and around chicken. Place rosemary leaves in and around chicken.

I put my chicken fully prepared in the fridge over night, since I don't have time to do all the prep work in the morning. 

In the morning, start the crock pot. (If you are using manual, cook on low for 6-8 hours.))

  ***Make sure that chicken is thoroughly cooked before serving***

Voila!