Crockpot Chicken & Maddie

First...Maddie.

The infamous stink eye.

Now, the chicken.

I friend recommended I try this recipe if we like rotisserie chicken...which we do.  Maddie gobbles it up like it's the greatest food she's ever tasted.

It's a Crockpot recipe.  I don't like leaving the Crockpot on when I'm gone.  So much so, that I'd never done it before.  But, I decided this would be the recipe I'd get over my fear...and hopefully not regret it by returning home to my house burned to the ground.

It's called The Best Whole Chicken in a Crockpot Ever, and I agree with the title.  Ingredients are super easy.  You need a Crockpot, a chicken, and this:

Mix up all the spices and rub it all over the chicken.  I also chopped up some carrots and celery to stuff the cavity of the bird -- don't forget to rub some spices in there too!  And you have plenty of spices to cover the whole bird and the cavity.

Then loosely chop up your onions and throw it all in the Crockpot and cook it.  The recipe calls for 4-5 hours for a 3-4lb bird.  I had a bird over 4lbs, so I did 5 hours.  The breasts dried out a bit, so next time I'd do 4.5 hours.

I also actually prepped the bird the night before.  Chopped up the onion, threw it in the bottom of a bowl.  Rubbed the bird and stuffed it and threw it on top.  Covered it and put it in the fridge until the following afternoon when I threw the bird in the Crockpot at lunch.

And then I proceeded to have what may be defined as a panic attack.  I got to work and suddenly couldn't think about anything other than the Crockpot that was left on in my kitchen.  I envisioned my house burning down.  Or at the very least my countertops melting from the heat of the pot.  Seriously.  I think I started having heart palpitations.  I worried the Crockpot was too hot, so I Googled how hot it should be.  Yeah.  I might be a little crazy.  The good news?  My house didn't burn down nor did my countertops melt.  And I came home to this:

The house smelled so good I wanted to eat it.  And the chicken tasted so good I ate entirely too much.  Seriously, even though the breasts were a bit dried out, it was amazing.  Some of the best chicken I've ever had.  Maddie gobbled it up.  Ryan made a sandwich and deemed it an amazing recipe.  And we have this left over for tomorrow:

Not sure what we're going to make yet.  Ryan's vote is chicken noodle soup.  Maybe chicken salad for sandwiches?  Enchiladas?

And to make this bird even more awesome, right now I have a giant pot of stock cooking!  I left all the juice and veggies in the Crock.  Took all the meat off the bones and threw the bones and skin back into the pot:

Then I added some new herbs, spices, veggies and water per the recipe and voila:

I've got a bunch of stock simmering overnight that I can strain and freeze to use whenever I need!  I'll make sure to let you guys know how the stock turns out...but based on that chicken, I bet it's going to be amazing!  Maybe we'll even actually make some chicken noodle soup tomorrow to try it out!

***UPDATE:  The chicken stock turned out amazing.  I got 8 cups or 2 quarts to freeze.  Using this in the Tortellini Soup makes it 10X better than it was originally!!!