Experimenting With Chicken (& Some Leftovers)

On last week's menu, I intended to break out my rotisserie and cook a chicken on Saturday.  Then I saw another blogger's menu which had a recipe for crock pot rotisserie chicken.  

I love rotisserie chicken.  I hate my rotisserie.  In fact, I don't even know how to get the chicken in there, and as I don't even like touching raw meat that much to begin with, so that is a husband job.  And if you know my husband's work schedule (which thankfully he is having a short reprieve from at the moment) that just doesn't happen very often.

So, you can imagine I was intrigued when I saw this crock pot idea.  I even read lots of comments from others that they always made theirs that way.   I googled and I found a plethora of ways that it should be cooked...skin off, skin on, breast down, breast up, flat on the bottom, sitting atop a bed of foil balls to lift it above the grease, sitting above a bed of foil wrapped potatoes which bake along with it...it went on and on.

Finally I saw one post (that I can't even find again now or I would link to it) that said she put hers on top of celery and onions.  She never said that she did anything with them afterwards, but a nice soup stock immediately flashed in my mind!

So here's what we did.  We sliced up some celery and lined the bottom of the crockpot.  And also the last of a bag of baby carrots.

My husband injected the chicken with italian dressing like he always does when we rotisserie.  Then we placed it in the crockpot with the skin on, because that's just how we roll, and breast down, because he said it would be juicier that way.  Then I sprinkled some seasoning atop the bird and closed the lid.

It cooked on high for about 5 hours.   I could not get a picture of the cooked bird because, well, it completely fell apart when we lifted it out.

However, it was quite delicious, in pieces though it was.  Oh well, we were going to have to shred it for the kids anyhow....   This was sooo easy to do, I don't think I will ever go back to my rotisserie again.  In fact, I think I might sell it!

We ate chicken, and stuffing, and green beans on Saturday night.  Then I pulled the rest of the chicken off the bones (not a hard task in the least), and I put the bones and skin and celery back into the crockpot with the juices that had cooked out and filled it up with water.   I let it cook on low overnight and all day long until just before dinner on Sunday.   Then I scooped all the solid stuff out and poured the broth into a container to freeze once it cooled.  It will make a delicious soup!

We still had the remaining meat from the chicken, so we tossed some on a salad  (details of the salad coming soon!)

We've *still* got some chicken left, too!  And also some lettuce, so I think we're going to make some wraps for lunch!