Whole Crockpot Chicken and Bone Broth

I've done this once before and it turned out really nice.  Instead of roasting a whole chicken in the oven, do it in the Crockpot.  Ya, it takes longer, but I think it's worth it.  If you eat the skin and like it crispy, that's not going to happen here.

 

Most of the recipes I see tell you to ball up aluminum foil to keep the chicken off of the bottom of the crock so it doesn't sit in the juice and fat for hours.  For some reason I don't like the idea of the foil sitting at the bottom for all that time.  I think if you're not going to continue on with the bone broth the foil would be fine.

 

However, I'm going to use the carcas for a bone broth so this is what I did.

 

Cut 2 onions in half and place at the bottom of the crock.  This will not only raise the chicken off the bottom of the crock, it will add to the flavor.

 

Say hello to my leetle friend... I think this was like a 4 or 5 pound bird for about 7 bucks.  He was an amputee missing his left wing tip.

Seasonings included a lot of salt and pepper, paprika, onion and garlic powder.  I shoved a cut up onion and whole garlic cloves in the cavity and stuck slices of garlic on the bird.  I think next time I'm going to crush the garlic and spread it out under the skin.

This is, I believe, after 6 hours on low. 

After cooling, get all your meat off the bones.  This is very tasty, moist meat right here.  Do with it what you will...

Put all the skin, fat and bones back in the crock and fill it up with water 3/4 of the way.  Also throw in the stuff from the cavity goodie bag in now.  I sliced up the organs into smaller pieces.  Add about 3 tbs of vinager.  I had apple cider.  This helps the nutrients come out of the bones.

This is after 24 hours.  Looks pretty gross at this point.  Strain this into a bowl.

The way you know you have gotten all you can get out of the bones is that when you go to snap them they kind of just crumble.

This is after a night in the fridge.  All the fat comes to the surface so you can skim it off.

Get as much as you can off.

Now we have some rich, tasty bone broth.  There are lots you can do at this point.  I've read of people drinking this throughout the day.  Others keep it to cook with. This is what I did.

Divide it up into bags for freezing for later use.

 

I'm looking foward to cooking with this.  I did drink some that was left over from filling these bags and let me tell you... this stuff is rich. 



 

I plan on getting to a point where I do this every weekend and use it throughout the week.  You can make bone broth from beef bones too if you can get them from your store/butcher.

Speaking of, I need to start using a butcher instead of grocery stores.

Microvave Potato Chips

 

A few months ago I saw a pin on Pinterest for microwave potato chips.  There are actually a few, so if you want to see them just search.  Anyway, I tried them and they were ok.  Using a mandolin speeds things up as far as slicing.  The only thing is, it's time consuming to do 1 plate of chips at a time.  They also took way longer to actually get crispy.  I never did it again.

 

Then, at work, someone brought in a Pampered Chef catalogue.  I glanced through it just to look.  Then, I saw their microwave chip makers.  Long story short, I got them.

 

The nice thing is, there's 2 that you can stack so nuking goes way quicker.  The only thing I didn't like was that the recommended 3 minute time was way too short.  This just may have been because my microwave is a bit older and maybe not as powerful. 

 

Not shown, but I also did sweet potatoes which took a little less time than the white potatoes and were really good.  Next time I might sprinkle a little cinnamon on them.

 



I think I used Yukon golds.  I was thinking cooking time might be lower with Russet or another lower moisture potato.  These are out on paper towels and lightly salted with sea salt.  Also patted on top with another paper towel layer.

 

First layer.

 

Two layers in the microwave.

 This is after about 3 minutes which is what the instructions say is the max.  As you can see, they're just a little translucent.

 

This is after 7 or 8 minutes.  You can see how they're browning a little, but it doesn't affect the flavor.  At this point, they're nice and crispy.  Now I'm not going to try and lead you to believe these taste like store bought bagged chips.  In fact, if you're a dip lover, these would be a  perfect alternative for dipping.  A lot better for you than greasy chips.

 

Of course Calli needed to get in on the action...

 

 

and munched away.

 

I also did some apple slices.

 

They didn't end up crispy, but would still be a good snack with some cinnamon sprinkled on them.

 

7

Yummy Protein Bites

So I've been looking for a granola type recipe that I can make easily.  I've tried 3 or 4 baked and not baked.  I've bypassed this one a few times because I thought, this can't be good.  It's just dates and nuts and seeds and chocolate.  Boy was I wrong.  These are great.  The original poster made them into bars but I found the mix too thick and sticky to do it that way, so I rolled them into balls.  You can find the original recipe here. 

 

 

The only thing I did different was add chia seeds.

 Ingredients

 

Mixed and rolled

 

The hands - very sticky mix but easy to wash off.

 

Yum

 

These are awesome.  I plan on making more versions with a date base and other nuts and seeds.  I'll also add oats and bran in the future. They have also stayed in an airtight container in the fridge for more than a week. Enjoy!

Hard Boiled Eggs

Hard boiled eggs are a snap for some, and an ongoing battle for others.  I'm the latter.  I've tried a handful of different methods and sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn't.  I got this method for Hard Boiled Eggs here.  They cooked perfectly and were a snap to peel which is another thing I always have issues with. Enjoy.

 

Broccoli Bites



These were really good.  They were great by themselves, but I had an open container of sour cream and they were even better dipped in that.  They would probably be good with Ranch dressing too.  Original recipe is here.  As you can see I added a couple things.  I want to make these again with spinach alone.

 

Ingredients

 



 

Mixed up

 

 

On the pan.  (Going to make them smaller next time)

 

Finished product

 

 

Bread

 

I want to make bread.  I need to make bread.  I've never made bread.  Until now.  I've tried a couple recipes and failed.  I don't have a stand mixer (which I hope to remedy soon) or a bread maker which seems to come in handy when it comes to making bread. 

 

The other day, I made bread.  The recipe I used is here.  I'm not going to list recipe because you can find it in the link, but I will share some pictures.

 

Ingredients

 

 

After mixing and going for 1st rise

 



 After rising for hour and a half

After 2nd rising in loaf pan

 

Baked bread

 

1st slice

1st bite of soft, warm bread with butter.  Success tasted so good!

 

I'm not sure what happened the first couple of times but this recipe worked for me.  Next time I might just skip the honey because I don't really want it sweet which this one was.  Not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just looking for more of a whole wheat sandwich bread.  Come to think of it, this would be a perfect bread for French Toast!  Anyway, bread success!

 

 

 



Spring rolls

These are called Spring Rolls as far as I can tell.  There seems to be a lot of argument about what they're called.  I guess it depends on origin and ingredients.  These are mine.

 

 carrots

cabbage

cucumber

green peppers

green onions

salad shrimp

Lay out a skin and put in what you want.

 

 

 

 Roll as directed and enjoy.