Recipe Test: Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot

Credit:  100 Days of Real Food 

So I have to admit I was ... um... scared of a whole chicken.  I have never bought anything but chicken breasts and of course the skinless already prepared kind.  In fact overall I have to admit I kind of have an issue when my food looks like the animal it came from.  I'm a HUGE animal lover and if my stomach were not bigger than my heart I would probably be a vegetarian.  Simply ... chickens are kinda cute.  Already packaged chicken breasts?  Not so cute.  But I'd already bought the crock pot and heard from several people just how easy it is to cook so many different meals that way.  And the recipe did say this is "by far the best (and easiest) way ... until it is falling-off-the bone delicious!" ... so at the meat counter in Whole Foods I stood looking at the little guy and saying "one whole chicken please".   Wrapped up in his brown paper bag swaddling I brought him home with me to be my very first 'looks like the actual animal' meal.   Okay - my neighbor did have a whole pig roast a few years back with THE HEAD ON but that does not count because I did not eat one bite of pork that day.  (I'm 1/2 Catholic & 1/2 Jewish ... Guilt is in my genes!) 


I got the makings for the rest of the meal too - salad & mashed potatoes.   Of course there was no recipe on the site for mashed potatoes so I had to Google that.  I suppose MOST people could figure that out on their own but as I've mentioned ... I burn toast regularly in a pre-set toaster.  Mashed potatoes is like advanced cooking for me!   I'll put up that recipe and the one for home-made ranch dressing in a bit - but let's start with this chicken. 

Click here to see the original recipe & instructions. 

INGREDIENTS: 

• paprika

• salt

• onion powder

• thyme

• garlic powder

• cayenne (red) pepper

• black pepper

• onion

• whole chicken

It smelled SO GOOD when it was cooking the dogs went CRAZY!  Poor guys- from a house with little to no food smells to 5 hours of wonderful chicken scented loveliness?  They were dancing around sniffing the air & I had to stop our bigger one from counter surfing several times.  Thankfully the 2 little ones cannot reach the counter if they tried ... wonderful vacuums of anything that hits the floor though!  They all were circling and nudging me like "Uh ... mom ... mom ... can I have that?" ...  As for the Chicken ... yes I must admit that when I unwrapped his brown bag swaddling and saw his little tuchus I felt guilty.  That guilt dissipated as I read the instructions about removing giblets?  What the f*(cough cough) are giblets?!  Little did I know that Whole Foods kindly does that for you and though I dug with my hand in the neck & tuchus cavity I found nothing to remove.  Still I did feel a bit like I was molesting the poor chicken .... not a fun chore I must say & I still fear what these giblet things are and when I will see one in real life.  

So 5 hours later I go to remove the chicken and another lesson presents itself.  I'm thinking I'll just take some prongs and move the chicken onto a plate ... right?  Nope ... "falling off the bone" actually means falling OFF the bone!  At the smallest touch it fell into pieces ... so I spent another 15 minutes figuring out how to get the meat into one container and the skin, bones and leftover onions into another (so I could make home-made chicken stock ... I know - Martha Stewart's beware ... I'll be hot on your tail soon!).  This was a messy undertaking especially with aforementioned 3 dogs going ape sh*t at my feet.  Even so ... I am happy to say that for the first time in my adult life (other than eating at a friend's house or a restaurant) I had a proper dinner with SIDES!   My plate looked a lot like the picture on the recipe (other than the fact that my chicken was just pieces and clearly Lisa is good enough to get them out intact!) with mashed potatoes and a salad!  It was a very strange proud 'I'm a grown up' feeling!      

Oh and as far as taste ... let's just say my plate looked like it was straight out of the dishwasher when I was done.  Yep - I LICKED IT!