It's been a rough week, but I think I can share something

[Tab]

Fourth of July weekend was not fun and ended up with me in the emergency room.

Still, cutting back on food costs and energy (I can't spend hours cooking anymore) has me eyeballing the stuff on sale at Hannaford's (local supermarket chain, good meat deals if you know when to catch it), and I bought a $14.98 slow cooker at a chain store Who Shall Not Be Named (but it's all we have, and yes, it starts with a "W").

Anyway, poor man's chicken cacciatore, which I never have cooked and don't know how, but I winged it (no pun intended).

Let's see... jar of peeled garlic cloves (I'm lazy), I used about 1/3rd, crushed them a little under my chef's knife, unsalted butter - let the aromatics go first - then some chopped white onion mixed in. Let it all brown / caramelize.

Um, then I took a roaster chicken and cut it up (you can't easily buy cut stuff any more - used to be that was all you could buy, now it's just packs of thighs or legs or wings - anyway, I can take apart a chicken quick enough) so dumped the chicken in the crock pot (4 qt, I think it was), dumped onion/garlic/butter on top, then some artichoke quarters - don't know why, but it seemed right - ah, shit, what else did I do? Um, some chicken consomme broth, not much, white pepper, Hunts "Italian" crushed tomatoes and some other tomato/basil/garlic or something can. Sorry, don't remember (it's been a long weekend). Anyway, I think that was it. Put it on low for 8 hours. Added more pepper (can never have too much pepper). I think that was it. Damn, it was good.

[elleng]

1. Thats great to hear, Tab!

:hug:

[sazemisery]

2. Yum. But I think a little more snarkyness is required.

Hope you are doing better. Glad to hear from you.:pals:

[mtnester]

3. I am glad you found it tasty

that is a good thing

Snark just adds ambiance :)

[housewolf]

4. Glad to hear you were feeling good enough to fix something good to eat

I cooked a whole chicken for the first time in my crock pot a couple weeks ago... cooked it overnight with no added liquid, added a carrot & celery for flavor - wow, was it ever tender and moist! The slow cooker is something you could get a lot of good use out of, is't so easy and delicious.