I use my slow cooker entirely too little compared to the space it takes and how much I wanted it in the first place. I usually only use it to make “creamy soups” (I’m starting to hate that word. We truly need a translation for “sosekeitto”) and broth/stock. It was then that I noticed I had too much chicken that needed to be cooked sooner rather than later. On to chopping veggies…
Slow Cooked Chicken on Vegetables
Ingredients
Chicken strips, any amount you might have.
1 sweet onion
1 stalk of celery
3 carrots
3 cloves of garlic
1 cubanelle (or bell) pepper
half a zucchini
1 middle-sized parsnip
2-3 tbsp olive oil
salt
black pepper
1 l chicken and/or vegetable stock
Season and marinade your chickens if you have non-marinated chicken. I had 500g pre-marinated “Quajillo-Chili” strips and 250g honey-marinated strips. It worked out fine in the end, a little bit on the warmer side rather than plain.
Wash everything. Chop celery to 1-2 cm pieces. Peel and cut onion in four pieces or if you have a rather large one, in eights. Chop carrot to 1-2 cm pieces. Peel and mince garlic. Cut cubanelle pepper in half, remove seeds. Chop to strips. I peeled the zucchini, you don’t need to. Cut lengthwise to fourths and then chop to 1-2 cm piece. Peel parsnip well, cut in half and chop to 1-2 cm pieces.
Put veggies into the slow cooker and mix them well. Pour olive oil on top.
Put chicken on top of the vegetables. Pour stock on top. I have a rather large slow cooker, so everything fit well, but be sure not to overfill yours. I used half chicken / half vegetable stock.
Close the lid, put the slow cooker on low and go to sleep. I let mine cook for 10 hours or so, then turned off the cooker and let it slowly cool down for another 2 hours.
Boiled Broccoli
Ingredients
1 large fresh Broccoli
1 – 1.5 l water
1 tsp Pepper Mix (rosé, green, black, white and allspice)
2 tsp (Himalayan Sea-) Salt
75-100g butter
Wash broccoli well, cut the stalk off and leave only the florets. Bring the water to boil, season, and add butter. Bring to boil again on high heat and add broccoli florets. Don’t add all at the same time. Add just a few so to keep the water boiling all the time. Let boil on high heat for 5 minutes, or when broccoli becames a bit soft, but not too soft.
Lift broccoli out and drain the liquid. (Don’t throw it away, it’s really delicious with potatoes for example).
Serve with Tomato/Onion/Mozzarella/Basil salad from earlier post and slightly-seasoned rice.