Crock Pot Chicken with Pan Sauce

The ultimate comfort food to me is garlic mashed potatoes alongside a roasted chicken. These days, roasting a chicken is a little hard with The Brothers keeping my attention on them and not the thermometer but I finally found the perfect way to crock pot a chicken by adapting a recipe from a friend. This turns out moist and perfect every time. It's fool proof. Boil a few potatoes and mash them up,  saute a few cups of spinach to go alongside this chicken and dinner is served!

Ingredients

2 lemons

3 heads garlic

3 bay leaves, preferably fresh

one 5-6 lb chicken

salt

pepper

1 T flour

Directions

1. Slice the lemons in half and lay flat side down on the bottom of the crock pot.

2. Slice the head of the garlic heads off and lay flat side down on the crock pot.

3. Remove any insides from the chicken, rinse, and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Lay chicken on the lemon and garlic in the crock pot and cover. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.

5. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it from the crock pot and let rest for 15 minutes. 

6. While the chicken is resting remove the lemons and garlic and strain the sauce into a fat separator. If you don't have one just pour the sauce into a plastic bag and hold over a bowl and snip the corner of the bag allowing the sauce to flow into the bowl and stopping just as the fat that should be at the top is near the bottom. Reserve the fat.

7. In a small sauce pan, add a little of the fat and mix with the flour. Stir until combine and allow to brown for about one minute over medium heat. Add the sauce to the pan and squeeze any juices left in the lemons. Stir and allow the sauce to thicken for about 3-4 minutes.

8. If making mashed potatoes I like to squeeze the garlic cloves out of the head and mash them into the potatoes. I also saute spinach and add some of the roasted garlic to the spinach along with half an onion for the perfect meal!

So last Friday I did not blog. I have been so diligent about writing 5 days a week but for the first time I was having some technical difficulties and my post did not happen. It felt good to take a bit of a break so this coming week I am going to be starting to write a little less frequently so I can focus a bit more on family life. I love to be able to document our life and share some fun activities and recipes but I want to be present and enjoy the little years which means just a few less posts.