Crockpot Chicken, two meals in one!

Hi friends. So on Wednesday I decided to cook a whole chicken in my crockpot. I know what some of you are thinking: I don't eat meat! Ok, well, this blog post is probably not for you, unless you find a potato somewhere that looks, cooks, and somehow tastes like a chicken. Others of you might be thinking that touching raw whole chickens is super gross and undesirable. While you couldn't be more right, whole chickens can be less than a dollar a pound (ours was $0.95 a pound regular price at Aldi), plus, you can use your leftover meat and bones to make a whole second meal. So it's actually an amazing deal and totally worth the gross first part.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of this first and second step because I was home alone with the dogs and the wee babe I watch, so no one was there to take pics for me and I would've contaminated everything if I'd tried to do it with raw chicken on my hands.

First, take the thawed chicken out of its wrappings, take the bag out of the body cavity (it holds all the innards people use to make stuffing, gravy, and I always just throw it away because it's too gross for me), and give your bird a good rinse with cold water. It will be disgusting, and you will need to clean your sink afterwards, but it gets better, I promise.

Then, pat your bird dry with paper towels. Take a breath, you're almost done touching a raw chicken and you're saving lots of dollars. Hurray! 

After that, you stuff the chicken. I stuffed mine with stuffing I had leftover from thanksgiving of last year. Don't overthink that last bit, it hadn't expired, it was still dried and in the box, let's move on.

I cut up an onion (coarsly chopped, quarter-sized pieces) and threw it at the bottom of the crockpot with a 1/4 cup of water and a little garlic. I put garlic in almost everything, so if you don't, ignore the suggestion. However, if you ignore the garlic suggestion too many times, people will start thinking you're a vampire, and the Twilight fans will be lining up to make out with you, so watch out, garlic could save your life!

Anyway....I put the bird, stuffed and all, in the crock pot and then rubbed it with salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, and thyme. Here's what it looked like:

Here's another pic from another angle:

Always cook the chicken breast side up. It's polite not to leave your chicken friend lying face down in onions and garlic, plus, they cook better that way, so it's also good for you.

Another thing to note is that I add water at the bottom, but it's just as good to spray the crockpot with cooking spray and then stick the chicken in on top of that. The reason I use water is because it's calorie free that way, and that's always fun.

Your chicken is cooked when the temperature of its cavernous insides exceeds 165 degrees Fahrenheit. 

I sautéed some carrots using some of the same spices I used on the chicken as a side dish.

This was the finished product for day one. It was quite good.

After dinner, I started prepping for day two's meal.

Separate the bones and leftover meat from the skin and fat from the chicken.

Or, since it's kind of a gross job, have a dreamy man do it for you. I chose this dreamy man because he lives here, too, and we are married, so that means we have to do nice things for each other.

Add the bones to the extra stuff leftover in the crockpot from when you took out the chicken. Add about six cups of water, turn it to a low setting, and then let it cook for around eight hours. I just let it go overnight, and made sure to wake up decently early in the morning...which I do anyway...

Pour the contents of your slow cooker into a heat-safe bowl, straining while you pour. I just placed a strainer in the bowl I was using and lifted it up once all the pouring was through. Worked slick.

Stick your bowl of chicken broth in the fridge for as long as it takes for the fat to rise to the top.

This is what the hardened fat will look like. It took the fat from my bowl of chicken juice about a day to harden to perfection.

Using a slotted spoon, scoop up all the fat from your bowl.

Now it's time to make chicken soup! 

Collect these materials: 5 stalks of celery, 1 onion and 5 carrots. You can peel the carrots if you want, but I don't bother, I just give the celery and the carrots a good scrub and get on with it.

Cut your veggies up into happy little soup chunks like this. Yum. I truly believe that most food looks better when presented on a blue surface. Ok! Moving on!

Stick all your veggies in your crock pot, add four or five cups of your home-made chicken broth, and turn it on to a low setting. Not your lowest, but, you know, low. Mine only has four settings, off, warm, low, and high, so if you have a nicer crock pot with a bunch of extra settings, just guess. It's hard to mess up a slow cooker recipe. 

Add a half a bag of egg noodles after your veggies have been in there for at least 2 hours.

Cut up at least 2 cups of the chicken meat you saved from the whole chicken you made earlier. Add it at the same time you add the noodles. Stir it all in and wait about an hour.

One that time is up, your soup will be ready for you to enjoy, so please do just that! Happy cooking! Happy saving!