Crocked Chicken

Beginning last fall, I decided to start using more whole chickens.  It's pretty easy in these parts to find good, local chickens from a number of farms, and chicken meat and stock are pretty basic to quite a few recipes.  Plus it's a lot cheaper {and more versatile} than buying boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  Over the winter I typically roasted the chicken in the oven or boiled it and made a stock and/or soup.  However, summer calls for some changes.

Enter the crockpot.  I have very few crockpot recipes that I actually like {but that's another story for another  day}.  This one though, is a real winner.  It's simple:

One Whole Chicken (3-5ish pounds)
+
1 can diced tomatoes with juices
+ 
A few spices (paprika, cumin, italian season blend...whatever suits your fancy)
+
3.5-4.5 hours on High in the slow cooker
=
Lots of yummy and juicy chicken to be used for soups, salads, casseroles, sandwiches, or whatever else you want
Oh and some really good "stock" to make rice with {more on this below}.

Seriously. It's that easy.  But if you want a few more details, here's my take on directions for this recipe:
I take off most of the chicken skin*, take out the insides if they are there**, set the chicken in the slow cooker {breast side down}, empty a can of diced tomatoes over the top of the chicken, sprinkle on a few seasonings, set the lid on the cooker, and cook it about 4 hours on high.  I just watch it after the first 3.5 hours to see when it's fully cooked so it doesn't get dried out. 

*I am not one to get all touchy-feely with my meat, so some of the skin stays on. So does the neck. I just try to ignore it and pretend like it's not there!

**I use a plastic bag to reach inside so I can just wrap it around the innards without having to see/touch them much and then dispose of them properly.

Once I know the chicken is cooked through, I remove it to a pie dish {this helps keep the juices from running all over my makeshift counter onto my washing machine below}, and set it aside while I make some rice. 

For the rice, I strain all the liquid that remains in the slow cooker {and usually get around 4 cups}, and put it in a pan.  I bring it to a boil, add the appropriate amount of rice {2 cups in this case}, and cook as usual.  If I want to make extra rice, I just add some water.  This works with brown or white rice.

While the rice is cooking, I shred my chicken with a couple of forks.  For a five pound chicken, I will usually get around 5 cups of meat.  I could probably get more, but I call it quits when I get to the point where I would have to really be dissecting the bird to get the rest of the meat.  Some of the meat goes right to our dinner with the rice I've been cooking, and the rest gets divided into 1-ish cup portions to be frozen for later use. 

Oh, and that huge pot of rice I just made? What we don't eat that night for dinner gets frozen for use later.

There you have it. A whole, cooked chicken, a dinner, and plenty of left overs for later!