Winner Winner Slow Cooked BBQ Chicken Dinner

By: Cynthia Litman

Pearl of the Meal: One Pot of Love From a Hot Mess Mom Chef 

The mix of Labor Day weekend, the start of school and the impending Tropical Storm Hermine which thankfully spared our neck of Long Island, found me in the supermarket 4ish times in the past week.

My fridge, pantry, counter and bottled water stash runneth over.

The start of the new year is a fresh chance for me to get it right in the kitchen with homemade healthy  organic meals - 3 square a day plus snacks. I always have this fresh bode of confidence in September.

I CAN DO THIS!!! - is a mantra I repeat over and over and over again until October-ish when I begin to curse the cold.

I must admit, right now my fridge status totally satisfies me. It's filled to the brim with foods for each of my family members to grab and go or sit and savor.

My inner domestic Mom Warrior Goddess is ready to go and very saucy - bring it on school year! 

And so around noon time I went straight to my slow cooker. Last year this beautiful device entered my life. It was love at first bite. We are on the same page. We get to where we are going, eventually, and take our time to simmer and extract the morsel of yumminess out of life.

On my second trip to Stop and Shop last week, I purchased a whole organic chicken, with the thought that I'd make some slow cooked dish with it. Now, I often have lofty ideas, especially in the kitchen department. Regrettably, I miss the 'use by' dates on nearly half of my purchases (if not more) which wind up in the garbage.

I lack interest in them or opt to dine out or drop in on a friend's house coincidentally during dinner time. Any million number of things can happen after their journey to my fridge.

But there was something about this chick. I wanted her... bad.

Chicken is usually a crowd pleaser among my pain in the ass, I mean picky, I mean selectively distinctive palette family.  I dropped the ball on not serving alternate meals ages ago.

So after making Challah French Toast for breakfast this morning, I cleaned my counter and brought out all the necessary fixings for my lil bird.

On a Trader Joe's trip a few week's back, I spied a Barbecue Sauce that looked delicious. When I shop for anything, I go strictly on what summons me - from meat, fruit to sauce. If it doesn't speak to me, I move on.

So I busted out the Organic Brown Sugar Barbecue Sauce and my go to spices - Turmeric, Paprika, White Pepper, Sea Salt, Pepper and for this an extra sprinkle of Cardamon and Ancho Chile pepper.

I gave my chicken a bath and covered her in spices.

About this time I remembered my herb garden and bolted outside for some fresh basil, sage and thyme. I tried to ignore the fact that my friend's dogs (who I dog sat this weekend) first order of business was to take a piss right into my herb garden.

I shook off this thought, I mean Hermine was no help but I hosed that down immediately and repeated hosed it each morning, noon and night over the last 3 days. For good measure, I soaked the herbs in a bowl of water (twice) and prayed.

About this time, my new precious little kitten Minka, was face first in the chicken. I swiped her up, put her in the family room and proceeded to rinse and repeat the spice bath on the chicken.

I turned the slow cooker onto sauté and got a round of EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil), 1 clove of garlic (which I crush with sea salt), salt and pepper going. It was about this time that I realized I forgot to buy onions on my 5 supermarket trips and knew I was going to forget to put it on my shopping list for next time.

Whatever.

I threw in some basil, thyme and sage to sauté.  Then a sweet potato, a hunk of ginger and surprise, an apple with a sprinkling of cinnamon.

This chick was going to be more sweet than savory. When it smelled right I introduced the spiced up chicken to the party. She crisped up on the outside.

After a few minutes, I changed the settings to slow cook (High) and sauced her up. She got saucy with said Trader Joes Barbecue Sauce, juice from half an orange, some actual Orange Juice, a sprinkle of Worsterchire Sauce (how does spell check not know that, I'm too tired to look it up), and the zest from that orange half.

I did another layer of salt, pepper and herbs. Let's see what else did I add, I'm sure I'm forgetting something.  Oh, two bay leaves and here's where I went all genius - some minced onion to compensate for my lack of real raw onions. (I recommend real onions if you're going to give this a go.)

Okay, so now I had 4-6 hours to figure out what I was going to serve this chick with.

And knowing my family has a too each his own preference I prepped a salad and Honey BBQ dressing for me, a baguette for my husband and daughter to make pulled pork sandwiches, corn for my salad and my daughter and as is for my plain Jim son just a plate.

I checked on my chick occasionally for a sauce splash. She was driving the hoards of kids that were in and out of my house during those 4-6 hours which by the way, included a home made pizza snack, wild.

She smelled gooooood.

As an intuitive cook, I find meat thermometers and other such accurate measuring devices to be offensive. I go by sight, smell and feel. I know when cookies are done because they waft and my mouth waters.

She was started to fall apart at my touch.

So when my hubby went to pick up my daughter from her playdate, I pulled my chick apart and dropped the bits back into the sauce and switched the setting to warm until ready to be plated.

I called my son in to help set the table as I threw in the bread to be toasted, turned on the corn and tossed my salad.

My hubby came home with my daughter and he made a 10th trip to the supermarket. He bought onions. Awesome. Five hours too late. He also brought home shredded cheddar cheese upon my request to add to their sandwiches and atop of my salad.

Like all great American families closing out the holiday weekend and prepping for back to school we sat around the table with our electronic devices off to the side but well within arms reach of each respective owner, in case of an emergency.

We talked, we laughed and I got an all around thumbs up on dinner!!!

I then proceeded to give a helping to the cats and rounded up the kids help for clean up.

Indeed it's going to be a fabulous and delicious year.

That all being said, I checked my kids school lunch calendar for the week and let out the biggest sigh that they both like what's on the menu for tomorrow a.k.a one less meal off my check list.

Up on tomorrow's meal calendar - lamb chops. Will post over on Facebook how and if that actually goes over. I mean I feel like I've earned my week's Mom chops inside of today.

Copyright © 2016 Cynthia Litman. All Rights Reserved.