My sister Kathy sent me recipe for a whole chicken. I could not believe how easy it was and the chicken was so juicy. Best of all I was able to get three seperate meals out of the chicken, plus enough chicken broth for two seperate meals.
Here's how she makes it.
Rinse chicken place in crockpot sprayed w/nonstick spray. You don't need any liquid. Then sprinkle your favorite spices(garlic & paprika). Place lid on crock, set on low and walk away for about 7 hours.
Remove chicken from the crock pot cut and serve.
DO NOT Dump the liquid in the crock pot.

If you don't want to serve the chicken for dinner, allow the chicken to cool and then remove the meat from the bones.
You can use meat like you would any other cooked chicken in a variety of recipes. Once you have removed all the meat from bones, put the bones back in the crock pot and add about five cups of water .
I also put the skin back in the crock pot since my kids won't eat it.
Set the crock pot on the low setting and cover.
Leave overnight.
In the morning you will have a crock pot full of bones and chicken broth and your house will smell like Boston Market for the next day or two.
Strain out the bones and you homemade chicken broth.
I store my broth in large yogurt containers. I got about 50 oz. of broth from one chicken.
After you put broth in container, place in fridge to cool. When broth has totally cooled a layer of fat will be on the top.
Scrape of fat with a spoon and broth is ready to be used or can be stored for up to
6 mo. in freezer.
I put the broth in some empty salsa jars I had.

My family had chicken and potatos the first night and then I made chicken enchiladas and poppy seed chicken with the extra chicken along with a chicken pot pie which used up some of the broth. It was so yummy and excited to see the chicken go such a long way. Thank you Kathy!!! My entire family loved it!

Calling All Cooks!!!

We were sick last week and I was craving a yummy easy stew so I got online and found this one. It was done in the crock-pot and super easy. The kids all loved it and it was just the comfort food I was looking for

Well...It got me thinking about how much I LOVE a good easy crock-pot recipe. I want to try and gather more crock-pot recipes especially since it is only going to be getting hotter and HOTTER here in AZ and any chance I can cook with out heating up the house sounds really good to me. I thought it would be fun to try and collect some more recipes and start a blog focused on easy delious meals. I will also focus on freezer meals and food storage ideas as well. If you have any recipes or tips and ideas you'd like to share please email them to me and I will do a blog post about it. I'm excited, I think this will be fun.

Here's the Stew recipe:
Slow-Cooker Beef Stew
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 onion, chopped (of course I left this out!)
1 1/2 cups beef broth
3 potatoes, diced
4 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, chopped
Place meat in slow cooker. In a small bowl mix together the flour, salt, and pepper; pour over meat, and stir to coat meat with flour mixture. Stir in the garlic, bay leaf, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, onion, beef broth, potatoes, carrots, and celery.
Cover, and cook on Low setting for 6-8 hours. (mine was done in about 5, but my crock-pot must get really hot! Just check it every so often and when the veggies are soft, it's done.)