Wednesday, February 1, 2012

What a Crock...Pot - Chicken Stewp Recipe!

It must be wacky post-pregnancy or nursing hormones or something, because I randomly decided to try making dinner one day. I even wandered off to the computer room to find my Fix-It and Forget It cookbook (because, naturally, it would be at my desk and not in the kitchen... that's crazy talk!) Naturally it was too late that day to start a slow-cooker recipe, so I planned it for the following day. I began looking for chicken recipes, since I figured there was a realistic chance that Unka Seesee had left us some frozen chicken in the freezer (not that I could be bothered to check...) I also figured we had potatoes. And carrots.
I couldn't really find a recipe that I liked with potatoes and chicken, so I faked it. I used a similar recipe in the book as a guide, to gauge how long and at what setting my food should cook based on the quantity of chicken and potatoes.
Since neither my husband nor I could determine what the difference between stew and soup was, we weren't sure what to call this. So we started calling it 'Chicken Stewp.' I spell it 'stewp' versus 'stoup' mostly because 'stoup' could be read to sound like 'stowp' (like stout or shout.)

Due to my extreme laziness, and the fact that if I go to all the trouble to slave over a meal and it gets eaten up in one sitting I feel like my effort was wasted (since that means I'd have to do all that work again that much sooner to feed us next time,) I decided to make a big batch. Since my crock-pot is the size of a thimble, I opted to use a large all-metal pot with lid in the stove.
According to the slow-cooker book, an oven at 200 F approximately equates to a slow-cooker's Low setting. 300 F (approx) for High. I also didn't have time to wait 8-9 hours, so I used the book's 1 hour on High = 2 hours on Low (approx) conversion.

Slow-Cooker Chicken Stewp
Ingredients:
7 medium potatoes, cubed
3 carrots, coined or cubed
3 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast, mangled cut up
1 small onion, diced
3 tsp minced garlic (roughly 3 cloves)
1 can cut green beans in water (or similar amount of fresh ones)
6 cubes chicken bouillon or 6 tsp chicken soup mix powder
2 tsp salt (optional. Depends if you use salty bouillon versus chicken soup mix)
3-3/4 cup water or chicken broth (or 4 cups if you use fresh green beans or don't add the water from the can)
pepper to taste


Directions:
Step 1: Layer potatoes, carrots, and green beans (plus the water in the can) in slow cooker.
Step 2: Sprinkle with onion, garlic, chicken broth powder (or bouillon,) salt and pepper. (I accidentally used some Lowry's Seasoned Salt, not knowing it makes stuff taste like BBQ. Oops. It came out okay though.)
Step 3: Layer chicken on top. Pour water evenly over everything.
Step 4: Cover. Cook on Low (200 F if in oven) 8-10 hours or High (300 F) 3.5-5 hours (If using frozen chicken, I'd go for the Low at around 9 hours, just to be safe.)

Pot o' Yum!
The chicken, potatoes and carrots were so soft they were falling apart. I really enjoyed this "stewp" with lots of (Whole Grain) Saltine Crackers broken up into it to give it some crunch.

1 comment:

  1. Looks yummy! I keep meaning to use my crockpot but 1) I always think of it too late in the day and 2) all the recipes I like call for browning the ingredients first, which makes it less of a timesaver.

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