I'm in trouble now!

Uh oh...I have figured out how to fiddle with the background controls...I feel a major time suck coming...it's going to be a good time waster though!

Now that it looks a little more like October 'round here, we need to celebrate my favorite month of the year.  So for those of us who were born in this lovely fall month, that's ROCKtober for you and me, and if you have a long lasting love with your crockpot (as I do) it's also CROCKtober.  Hmmm, tap, tap, tap, I got nuthin'.  If you have any, you better post them!!!

Well, since it's CROCKtober and all, here's a little CROCKpot recipe.  (By the way I think we are officially supposed to call them slow cookers to be PC and all, but whatever. Roll your eyes here.  We all know they were popular in the 70's and they are crockpots!  Don't even get me started about the Kleenex/tissues debacle.)

Crock'd Italian Chicken
Start this in the morning so it can cook all day on low.
Or start it at lunchtime, but cook it on high, all afternoon.

Buy a big package of chicken thighs at the grocery.  Take off the skin if you want.  I do.  If you don't happen to be feeding 2 teenagers and an 11 year old who makes them look bad at the dinner table, go ahead and buy yours already skinned.

Get out a couple cans of diced tomatoes (not the big doorstop size, the usual, slightly bigger than a soup can size - I am so not going out to my pantry to check the ounces - but this isn't rocket science so you can't really screw it up!)

Pour 1/2 of a can of your diced tomatoes into the bottom of your crockpot.

Add 1/2 the thighs and the other 1/2 can of tomatoes.

Break out your Italian spices: like oregano, basil, garlic salt (if you've got 2 extra minutes, press a clove of garlic and use a little kosher salt, but the garlic salt is fine, remember this baby is a 70's darling and NOTHING was fresh in the 70's, except maybe Burt Reynolds).

I usually mix and match whatever Italian spices I have on hand and fill up the little quarter size crook of my palm with the Italian spices.  Then, over the chicken and tomatoes already in the crock, rub your hands together crushing the spices.  Emeril swears this releases the flavor of dried spices and I believe him.  He's Emeril.

Add the rest of the thighs and the other can of diced tomatoes.  Throw in some more spices.

Put the lid on, make sure that crockpot is set on low, and go do something fun all day long. Or, if you must, go to work, but at least you'll come home to a house that smells really good.   (If you do this at lunchtime and go the matinee, put it on high, so you're not eating raw chicken, which is a Bad Idea.) 

You can serve this over pasta, next to bread, garlic bread, garlic cheese bread, whatever makes you happy.  Rip open a bag of salad or steam some green veggies and call it dinner.  This feeds my hungry family of 5 with a little leftovers.  More people?  Serve it with all of the above.

Just don't do this with chicken breasts.  Well, you can.  But they'll be dry.  Every time.  Or maybe that's just my experience.  Anyhow, I've served this even when my kids' friends have been over, and everyone always likes it.  Which is a good thing.

Oh, and I cook this in one of those big oval crockpots.

Happy CROCKtober!
~S