Crockpot Chicken and Tomatoes

I love my slow cooker. Well, technically, that would be slow cookers, plural, because I actually have three of them in different sizes. THAT is how much I love slow-cooking foods.

Slow cookers are never going to be cool. Slow cooking is never going to be the next sous vide or make the cover of Food and Wine. It's always going to conjure up the image of soccer moms and cream of mushroom soup and those Betty Crocker cookbooks at the checkout counter. And it sure as heck doesn't make food that turns out pretty on the plate.

But I ask you this: What is the worst time to be making dinner? Dinnertime! Think about it! You're hungry. You're tired. You just finished a long day of work or a long day with the kids. If you have kids? Well, then you know what kids look like at 5-6 o'clock and it ain't pretty. So now that you've busted your butt all day, it's time to find something to eat, MAKE something to eat, and then clean up all the dishes you made by making something to eat.

This is why people eat corn flakes and pinot grigio for dinner. Sometimes. Some people. *cough*

But imagine this: It's dinnertime and you have dinner, piping hot, already prepared. The dishes from making that dinner are already clean in the dishwasher, like some kind of Harry Potter time-traveling magic. THAT is the awesome power of the slow cooker.

And while you might think that the slow cooker excels at stews (it does) and briskets (that too) and other winter fare, imagine the greatness of the slow cooker on a hot summer day, when you don't want to turn on the oven, stand over the stove, or swat the bugs away from your grill. Sadly, summer recipes are a bit harder to come by for the slow cooker, but, courtesy of one of my favorite bloggers, The Crockpot Lady I found a real winner:

Herb-Roasted Chicken and Tomatoes adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking

Ingredients:
4 pounds chicken, whole or parts, your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons herbes de provence (I didn't have any on hand, so I used thyme, rosemary, and basil)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (I doubled this. We love smoked paprika.)
8 vine-ripened tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine (Shockingly, I didn't have any in the house, so I used 1/4C white balsamic vinegar and 1/4C apple juice. I imagine you could use whatever liquid seems good for your tastes.)
*My additions: I had a 1/2 onion and a large, smashed garlic clove that I put inside the bird for more depth.

The Directions.

Use a 6-quart slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine dry spices and set aside. Wash chicken, remove neck and giblets, and try to cut off as much skin as you can using poultry shears. If the chicken is fully thawed, this is much easier to do. Rub the seasoning mixture on all sides of the bird, inside and out and place into your stoneware. (She put the chicken breast side down, but I didn't and it was fine.)
Wash and cut the stemmy part out of each tomato, and plop on top. Pour the white wine in, and cover the slow cooker. Cook on low for about 7 hours, or on high for 4-5. Carefully remove the bird from the pot, and retain the drippings to make a pot of steamed rice.

Oh my gosh. Oh. My. Gosh. Something about this dish is just magical. The tomatoes stay whole until you cut into them and then they just sort of slump over and sigh, releasing fresh summery goodness all over your perfectly moist, seasoned chicken and to-die-for rice. Or quinoa, in our case, as I had some leftover from Quinoa Disaster Week. Using the liquid from the chicken to make the quinoa resulted in an intensely-flavored, salty, delicious foundation for the silky tomatoes and juicy chicken.

I can't wait to make it again. And I can't wait to use the leftover chicken in quesadillas. Or chicken salad. Or...okay, I might have been picking some out of the pot. It's really just that good. And hey, no bugs, no sweating, and no more cereal for dinner. (Unless you want to. Corn flakes are pretty good over peach ice cream.)