Right now, chicken isn’t just everyone’s favorite white meat  -  it’s practically everyone’s favorite meat.  It might not be great news for those plucky birds, but it’s a bonanza for home cooks!  Healthy recipes abound that use every part of the chicken, including the leftovers.  It’s economical, effortless, and fast.

Poultry has the reputation, hotly contested by beef producers, of being the most health-conscious animal protein around.  Whether that is true or not, chicken recipes are some of the most-researched ones online.

The reason for this, at least in part, is that it’s a picky palate indeed that does not like chicken.  This poultry is versatile, easy to find, and toddler-approved.  Combine a chicken with a crock pot, and one of the easiest and tastiest meals in the busy modern cook’s arsenal is created.  Crock pot chicken can be as basic as tossing a whole chicken in with potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, and garlic for a no-hassle dinner as comfy and familiar as a favorite pair of jeans.  It can be as unexpected as Chicken Cacciatore (chicken, vegetables, and tomato sauce simmered in a slow cooker and served over pasta) or curried chicken, served over rice pilaf.

Another classic chicken recipe that works amazingly well in a crockpot is chicken soup.  Again, endless variations are possible on this theme:  Chicken and Rice, Chicken Noodle, Chicken and Dumpling, Southwest Chicken-Tortilla Soup – really, almost any combination of poultry, veggie, and seasoning.  Soups can be cooked all day long; in fact, many taste better after a good all-day simmer.  Floury ingredients like pasta should be precooked and added about ten minutes before serving.  This will warm them through without running the risk of having them disintegrate into the broth.

Chicken breast recipes that call for slow cooking, especially in crock pots, need a little more care to keep the delicate meat from drying out.  This cut is very low in fat, so while this makes it a dieter’s best friend, a cook with a crock pot needs to make sure that this cut does not get overcooked.  Usually, covering it in a rich sauce that has at least a little fat and monitoring the cooking time, will do the trick.  Should the breast meat cook too long and fall apart, serving it shredded and mixed into the cooking sauce (a barbeque sauce, for example) not only salvages dinner, it may become a new family favorite.

Reheating chicken in a slow cooker or crock pot is a great way to give it new flavor and avoid that re-warmed taste.  Letting it simmer for a few hours in a robust sauce (tomato and basil, Thai-style peanut sauce, or various curries or barbeques) and serving it with steamed vegetables and rice, potatoes, or pasta is a quick and inexpensive weeknight dinner.  Plus, your food dollar goes further, since nothing is wasted.

Check out:    http://www.fatjons.com/f/j/sales_pg for all kinds of Crock Pot Chicken Recipes!

Ah, the humble crock pot.  Call it what you will – crock pot, slow cooker, or crockpot – it has been plagued by unfair rumors and a chunky, unfashionable build.   It is often relegated to the darkest regions of the furthest cupboard, only to be dragged out once a year to act as a warming dish for someone’s semi-famous casserole recipe.  That’s doubly unfortunate, since in our cash-strapped, health-conscious, time-squeezed modern life, we could use just such an ally as the crockpot.

No one in their right mind would suggest using a slow cooker as a dining-room center piece (unless, of course, you were staging a chili cook off, in which case the slow cooker could be tastefully surrounded by jalapenos and onions).  Still, it deserves a spot a bit nearer to daylight.   Many an easy and quick slow cooker recipe can be found online and in cookbooks.  Whether it’s preparing a roast chicken recipe or a hot fudge cake, a crock pot saves both time and money – just toss the ingredients in the cooking chamber, plug it in (very important), and let it do the work for you.

There is one more step to cooking with the crockpot:  coming back.   Untold dozens of crock pot dinners have dissolved into a very thick mush, leaving behind a frustrated cook who will have to defend his or her reputation for several years afterward.  Even the simplest and most promising crock pot recipe can be ruined by being forgotten.  Fortunately, the solution is as easy as setting a timer or the alarm on a cell phone.  Other than that, it is surprisingly hard to mess up a crockpot recipe.

Soup recipes, and their close relatives, chili recipes, are naturals for crock pot cooking.  Chili is one of the few things that can be cooked all day without damaging the flavor or texture. ( If you can square it with your conscience to add pasta to your chili, cook it separately and add it about half an hour before serving, or else see the paragraphs dealing with mush above.)  Another one-dish meal, the famous/infamous casserole, can easily be prepared in a slow cooker and left to bubble away until dinnertime.

Finally, we come to chicken recipes.  The hardest part in slow-cooking a chicken is to ensure that the relatively lean white meat in the breast doesn’t dry out.  One solution, if you are making a traditional-style roast chicken, is to cook the bird upside down, with the breast facing the bottom of the cooker and the fatty chicken back pointing towards the lid.  Less healthy but possibly tastier options are to cover the breast with several strips of bacon or place small pieces of butter under the skin.  Chicken prepared in a slow cooker rarely boasts the crispy brown outsides of a bird cooked in an oven or over a rotisserie, but the meat stays moist and flavorful with a minimum of fuss.

Are you hungry yet?  Think of how easy it would be to liberate the crock pot from the back of your pantry and set it to work making soup, chili, casserole, pot roast, or even dessert.  To get more ideas and recipes for slow cooking, stay tuned here at  www.fatjons.com !