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Today's Recipe: 40 Garlic Crockpot Chicken

Ya'll know how I love my crockpot, right? Well, yesterday I filled it to the brim and cooked up some 'Aweshum' :-)

As you may or may not know, I love garlic even more than I love my crockpot. That is why 40 Garlic Chicken is one of my favorite things ever. My mama and I used to make it all of the time. I haven't made it in a while because I don't enjoy dealing with whole chickens. Out of the blue, Mama decided to not only make 40 Garlic Chicken for our family Christmas gathering, but to make it in a crockpot. That's when I found out that many, many other people have done this before. There are multitudes of recipes on the interwebs for 40 Garlic Crockpot Chicken, but this one is MINE :-)

If you are not currently in love with a crockpot of your very own, you may not know this but crockpot recipes are even more forgiving than soup recipes. You can basically throw things in at random, and dinner will still be tasty! So go crazy, make stuff up and eat, eat, eat :-)

40 Garlic Crockpot Chicken

olive oil
1 bag carrots - unpeeled and vaguely chopped
1 large yellow onion - sliced
4-6 Lbs chicken - whole or parts (I used thighs and drumsticks)
2-3 heads garlic - remove outer paper & separate cloves (no need to peel each clove)
Rosemary, Thyme, Sage (and Parsley if you like it - I don't)
Salt
1 cup white wine or chicken broth (I used wine)

Pour a small slick of olive oil into the crockpot (approx 1 Tbsp). Throw in the carrots and onion. Lay in the chicken - I removed most of the skin, but was not really careful. Tuck the garlic cloves in around the edges and between the pieces (or in the cavity if you're using a whole chicken). Scatter any stragglers over the top. Season generously - salt sparingly. You can use fresh or dried herbs. I used approx 1 Tbsp each of dried spices. Pour wine or broth over the top. Cook on 'high' for 3-4 hours or 'low' for longer. I turned the top pieces about 1 1/2 hours into cooking so that more of the spices were incorporated into the 'broth'. That's it! Easy, peasy! The meat fell off of the bones as we took it out of the cooker.

I served the chicken in one giant bowl, the garlic in another bowl, and the onions and carrots in a third bowl. If the meat hadn't fallen apart, I might have served it all together, but I was a bit concerned that we would end up eating a homogenous mush, so I kept it all separate. I strongly advise serving a large loaf of fresh bread with this meal because you are going to want to squeeze the garlic cloves out of their papery skins and onto the bread for immediate consumption :-)