The crockpot experimentation continues. I made Angie’s upside-down whole chicken recently and it was good, but we only eat the white meat and throwing away that much chicken was sad. We really only eat boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
After scouring the internet and finding a gazillion recipes with ingredients at least one of the four of us won’t eat, I decided to go basic. It was a success, I guess, though nobody jumped up and down, their tastebuds shouting out in orgasmic pleasure. The flavor wasn’t bad. The Short Kid ate more than he usually does when it comes to chicken. The husband and the Tall Kid both had seconds. I didn’t think it was bad, but I had some texture issues with it. Maybe it was overcooked.
I started with a package of boneless chicken breasts—it had five in the package (plump ones, with the tender underneath still attached). Since everything I read said it was better to cook them from frozen, I thought about buying one of those bags of frozen breasts, but I’m extremely finicky about chicken and wanted to hand trim it myself. I trimmed them all up, dumped them in a freezer bag and tossed it in the freezer. Which brings us to yesterday morning.
Step 1: Oh crap. When you dump chicken breasts in a bag and freeze them, you can’t get them apart in the morning. Run them under hot water. Get bored. Screw it. Dump them in the crockpot all stuck together. Pour in some chicken broth, but without knowing how much, just wing it and have it so it covers the bottom two-thirds of the breasts.
Step 2: After a while, separate the breasts that are no longer stuck together. Wonder if you should add more chicken broth. Get distracted by text messages and skip it.
Step 3: Realize you forgot to add the seasonings. I dumped in a packet of Lipton Savory Herb with Garlic Soup Mix because it’s yummy.
Step 4: An hour later, decide the soup mix looks too gunky and thick sitting on tip of the chicken, so scrape it off into the broth, stir it around a little and then spoon back over the chicken.
Step 5: Wonder if you should keep opening the lid and letting the heat out like that.
Hours later: Chicken. Not bad. Not awesome.
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I giggled.
When I use the crockpot I usually have a ‘eff it’ attitude. I dump it in and walk away for 6 to 8 hours.
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What Annmarie said.
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Make that three “eff it” attitudes. I’m the same.
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Yep. Dump and leave.
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I have to use my crock pot on my not-at-home days, because when I’m home I fuss with it too much. Just can’t leave it alone! Which is really not the point of a crock pot!
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Okay, I now totally get how you will not be “The Next Iron Chef”. I laughed like crazy.
(Readily admitting that years ago I ended up with a batch of pork chops that were supposed to be breaded, but only had a coating of scrambled eggs on them. Never tried THAT again!)
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I have never in my life made a successful crock pot meal. It always dries out halfway through the cooking time. And I’m talking four different crock pots several times each, recipes followed TO THE LETTER. The last attempt was a crock pot that has a timer and will switch from high to low or to warm, and one of the frozen crock pot meals. It was extremely difficult to clean all the cooked-on food where it dried out at the top.
We also have the same issue with finding recipes that don’t have something one of us hates.
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I’ve found for chicken breasts and pork tenderloin 2 hours is usually the max for them to cook and not be mush. I tend to use the crockpot more for beef or when I can’t baby the meat. I really love it for those cheap roasts that take forever in the oven and heat the house all up.