Kitchen Chronicles: My Chicken’s Got A Big Butt!!

 I am no quiter.

So I have given the crock pot a second chance.

I love the idea of cooking in a crock pot, and after the garlic clove/bulb fiasco of my last attempt I promised that I would redeem myself with another *simple* recipe.

 I even got a cute apron as motivation.

Listen- sometimes you just gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Thus, the chicken in a crock pot dinner.

I love the idea of a crock pot. You just put it all together and leave. Love it. Just absolutely love it. Because one of the biggest stresses of cooking (besides all those dang spice options) is managing each dish of the meal at once. I do enough multi-tasking in my day-to-day to not care so much about adding more on for a little grub.

Another thing is, I may have said this before, but apparently it bares repeating. I’m a busy girl. I’m the girl who forgets to eat because it just takes too much time and I would rather be able to eat a breakfast bar three times a day instead of pausing 20 minutes for a meal. It’s just annoying.

So shopping for the recipe list is one of the most tedious task ever. Okay, so that is a slight exaggeration, but when you don’t know exactly what to look for or where it can feel a bit sporadic.

 

I didn’t wanna miss any of the deep range of emotions that go along with cooking (wanted you to get the full effect. Your welcome.) so I talked this out as I went through the process and then typed it later. Yes, you can imagine how fabulous that was.

Talking to myself in my apartment.

Like a cooking show.

One of those moments that I’m glad I live alone. No witnesses.

Ingredients to be used:

Carrots

I love carrots.

I figured I would get them first because I knew right where to find them and it would build up momentum.

1 Onion

Why do they just put “onion”? Is that a red onion, purple onion? little onion? big onion? Doesn’t matter, just get one? I don’t know. Don’t assume, recipe people. Don’t assume.

Potatoes

(Again – How many? What size? What color?)

I went with little one because I think that’s what I’ve seen in pictures. And because that’s just what i did so hopefully it’s right.

Rice

You know the ones that cook in the microwave (aka gourmet meal).

Plus it said chicken on the bag so i felt like it had to be the right choice.

Cornbread

(which I never ended up cooking)

However, is not located on the bread aisle. Not even close.

Broth

Because it was in the cubbard (#thoughtitwaschickennoodle) and I’m feeling daring tonight.

Chicken

O goodness, what to say about this chicken.

I’m staring at it feeling as if I should give my condolences or something. It’s a little intimidating to me. I think he may be staring back at me. There were a few issues with the selection, but only because of all the choices.

I didn’t wanna make wrong decisions here.

There was a whole chicken with a families name on it. There were two little “hens”? Apparently it’s all chicken, just boys vs. girls and sizes. I went with the Roger Boling family chicken. Looked nice and plump and medium sized. And the Roger Boling family sounded like nice people.

I’m not gonna lie – through this entire process (especially selecting the plump chicken) I couldn’t help but think of my chickens as a child and being a little bit sad the one I chose was probably clucking around with his friends a week or so ago.

Sad story.

Last item –Crock Pot

And no folks, there should be no water between the crock and the pot… thank you for asking, a lot of people wonder the same thing. Very common.

 So my initial thoughts/ questions are: I’m kind of scared of this chicken. What I hear about what’s inside – do you eat the gizzard? Do you not eat the gizzard?

Broth or Water? How much? (because I hear that chicken’s create their own juices, apparently.)

After the initial cut into the chicken bag I was feeling pretty prepared. I tried to take a visual lesson from a friend just so that I would be ready for it, but it didn’t help much. I threw up in my mouth a little bit. It was just so juicy. Okay, so you want to know what really happened.

 I lifted it up and a bunch of stuff poured out and I screamed. True story.

It’s like a blood bath over here… now that i’m moving on from the battle field, and need therapy for murder.

 It pretty much looked like this:

 

That little bag was inside that chicken's butt!

 But then I was so sad cus I flipped him over and his little wings were all sad and bald. No feathers.

But I continued, took a moment for us to become aquainted, and I’m not gonna lie, I made the chicken dance for a second. I don’t know why, I just had to.

It’s just an awkward situation. This thing is too heavy and has muscles and bones and too much like a little alive thing to be washing and spreading his little wings. As if i’m giving him a bath or something. No joke. How disgusting.

 On to potatoes.

This is one thing that I actually used to help my mom do. It involved no spices, no animals, nothing super intense. Just wash, cut and into the pot. Simple enough.

 I chose to leave the peel on them because I think I read somewhere that it has the most nutrients. Hope so because if not I’m doing it anyways.

 My favorite part so far: Washing potatoes.

 How many potatoes are too many potatoes?

How should the pot be arranged? layered? sporadic?

 The only problems I had from here out were – the onion (it’s just grody) and the fact that once I had everything in the pot the chicken’s butt was too big to close the lid.

For one moment I was relating really well with that chicken.

 I had to pull it all out and rearrange the pot with less veggies and the chicken on bottom.

Now I’m gonna go about my merry way and clean some apartment because guess what? IT’S COOKING WITHOUT ME – absolutely love it!

Next day: I woke up a lot because of this great aroma brewing in the kitchen and for some reason I was just afraid that it was dangerous. Like the stove or something. Just-a boiling away (amazing how this thing works) and smelling good.

It took me a minute to try it. I really was scared. But I did… and… kind of dry. It did fall off the bone just like they said. But still kind of dry. How do I fix that? But the veggies were delicious and the brothy “juice” was great with them. I should have just skipped the trauma of handling dead chickens aka my childhood pets and I would have been good to go.

 I don’t know, people.

At this rate, I may be on my way to a George Foreman grill pretty darn soon!

No Promises, but I’m feeling it!

P.S. Big shout out to Heather Nance for the heads up on chicken/veggies in the crock pot… that woman is a plethora of cooking knowledge!

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