Happy World Cat Day

What do you do when you realize that it is World Cat Day? You change your planned dinner menu of course. We were supposed to have Lasagna Rolls tonight and Roasted Chicken tomorrow night. Guess we will be having the Lasagna Rolls tomorrow.

Archie, our 17-year-old cat, loves chicken. I have a recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken that is so darn easy and delicious. It is a pretty basic recipe.

I had a few other things going on in the kitchen at the time, making Brioche bread for tomorrow's breakfast, making Italian bread for this week, the Lasagna Rolls, and making Stuffed Artichokes for during the week. 

I put everything in the Slow Cooker Chicken recipe in the slow cooker and set to low and moved on to my next kitchen task. After an hour I looked at the slow cooker and thought, "Wow it looks like is not cooking." Yup, I forgot to plug it in. Sigh. I plugged it in and changed the setting from low to high. It was done on time and tasted amazing. I made sauteed zucchini and mashed potatoes for us humans along with gravy using the drippings.

Slow Cooker Chicken Recipe
Ingredients-
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
Salt and Pepper
2 carrots, cut into thirds
2 celery, cut into thirds or quarters
2 1/2 to 3 -pound whole chicken, rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel, neck, and gizzards removed (if any)

Gravy (optional but too good not to make!)
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons all-purpose unbleached flour
Drippings from Chicken
salt & pepper

Method-
Chop vegetables and add to a 6 to 7-quart slow cooker.

Prep the chicken
Bend the wings back around the neck of the chicken.
Use your fingers to separate the skin from the meat. Rub half of the butter under the skin and the other half on top of the skin. Season with salt, pepper.

Lay the chicken in the slow cooker on top of the vegetables. (No need to add water or broth). PLUG IN THE SLOW COOKER. Turn slow cooker on high for 3 to 4 hours or on low for 4 to 6 hours until chicken is thoroughly cooked through to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F.

Remove chicken and place into a baking dish and broil for 4 to 6 minutes or until the skin is crisp. Keep an eye on the chicken under the broiler it can brown up pretty fast!

Carve the chicken and serve with the vegetables from the slow cooker if desired.

Gravy
Remove vegetables and pour chicken broth from the bottom of the slow cooker into a fat separator or use a spoon to remove any extra fat. Strain the liquid.

In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and mix with a wooden spoon to cook the flour. Whisk in 1 to 1.5 cups of the strained chicken broth. Bring to a boil and allow to boil for 30 to 60 seconds. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes and season to taste.