Chicken Cacciatore

6 Chicken Thighs
28 oz jar of Pasta Sauce
1 to 2 tbl Tomato Paste
8 oz of Mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion diced
2 Bell Peppers diced
1/4 tsp Parsley
1/2 tsp of Basil
1/2 tsp of Oregano
salt and pepper

Put the chicken in the crock pot. Season the thighs with salt and pepper.

Dump everything else on top of the chicken. Cover and cook on low for 7 hours, stirring whenever you think about it. Serve over rice or pasta.

1. get a crock pot with a timer. Hated the one from Cuisinart b/c it cooked to hot and burned everything. Love the cheaper one we have from Hamilton Beech. Downside is the ones with timers tend to be 6+ qt, yet many recipes are better in a 4 qt.

2. Like 11:43 says, make sure it is full enough. Or wrap the ingredients in a foil packet.

3. Cook's Illustrated has decent recipes in Slow Cooker Revolution, although I find quite a few of them take more prep time than I would prefer.

4. crockpot365 is OK.

some favorites that are not creamy:
* Pot roast w/ carrots and potatoes in foil
* corned beef w/ carrots and potatoes
* chicken w/ 40 cloves of garlic
* pulled BBQ chicken
* pulled BBQ pork
* split pea soup

I'm always looking for tasty, healthful, low-carb items for the crock pot that my child will also eat.

chilli not chilly

Slow Cooker Gourmet recipe book has a lot of ideas and they aren't cream based. We have found that pork is by far the best meat for slow cooking. We make pulled pork sandwiches and other pork dishes regularly. We have also found the best tasting dishes are typically the ones that do take a little bit of prep - sautee, browning meat, overnight marinade etc rather than simply tossing ingredients in. Because of this we tend to make it on the weekend and either freeze a portion or eat it the first couple days of the week. Or do as much the night before and then toss in everything as you head out the door. I too was convinced the only things you could make in a crock pot was chilly or just canned soups added to stuff that made mush. Boy have I changed my tune once I started looking for recipies and I'm glad I did.

We love this Chicken Chili Verde recipe. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chicken-Chili-Verde-3012#ixzz0qqvt363P

Definitely use chicken thighs (I tried substituting chicken breast to be healthier, but the flavor was significantly weaker). I shred the chicken with 2 forks instead of cubing it. And I use poblano peppers instead of green peppers. Last, I serve the cilantro on the side because some people think that cilantro tastes like soap (it's genetic, really!).

To avoid that "creamy" casserole style, avoid recipes that use cream of anything soups, large amounts of flour or starch (like cubed potatoes) or cream. All of those are designed to increase the creamy style sauce.

Putting thing in the crockpot in the morning and coming home to dinner ready has never worked for me. I always end up with a pile of overcooked mush. I am also gone 10 hours/day which is too long for anything to cook.

I like the "not your mothers slow cooker" cookbook. but tend t make thing on the weekend when i can turn it off when done.

Oh and filling the pot all the way is important for propper cooking, expecially if you will be leaving it for a long time.

I have found some great ones on allrecipes.com, and they are all reviewed by other cooks (some with thousands of reviews) so I've really only had one "miss" so far. I also have the Fix It and Forget It cookbook, though I find that I hardly use it now that I have found this website.

"Fix-it-and-Forget-it-Lightly" on Amazon

Pinterest.

Hi everyone. I always read on here about how people toss stuff in the crock pot in the morning and a nice dinner is waiting and ready when they get home. But for some reason I associate crock pots with creamy dishes, which I do not like. Can anyone recommend some recipes or a site they really like with recipes that do not remind me of the creamy sloppy dishes my mom prepared in the 80s (sorry mom). Thanks.