Julie/Julia or Stephanie O'Dea. Who, you say? Well, Stephanie O'Dea is a fellow blogger. She had this fun News Year's Resolution .... starting on Jan 1 2008, she would use her slow cooker every day of the entire year.... and blog about it EVERY DAY!
I jumped onto her blog as a follower about March, hearing about her from Paula and Jerry who were following her from their camper while in Mexico.
I recently went to see the movie "Julie/Julia" where there is a girl who adores Julia Childs and decided to cook every recipe in one of Julia's French cookbooks over the course of a year (400 recipes) and blog each day about it. When I understood the basis for the movie, and I had read it was based on a true story, it reminded me of Stephanie's quest.
Stephanie's blog not only has recipes, but pictures of the ingredients, of the finished product, comments, verdicts (good or bad) and they are all gluten free as a bonus for my friends who need this.
The one thing in my house that is under utilized is my slow cooker (oh, and my exercise bike). I am not a big fan of stew, and honestly, anything I have made in my cooker that wasn't a stew, still looked like stew and tasted like stew. Stephanie's blog gave me hope that
maybe I could actually make something that wasn't stew, in looks, taste or other wise. Now this blog is not about how I have turned into a slow cooker advocate.... I will leave that to Stephanie.
But... this weekend I decided to make a chicken in the darn thing. I searched the blog for a chicken recipe and although there are 59 chicken recipes (and tons of yummy ones) I wanted a whole chicken recipe. I decided to use Rotisserie Chicken Recipe.
She starts with a 5lb "skinned" whole chicken. OK, I thawed a 3 lb chicken and then this morning I looked at my little chicken and though... how the heck do I skin it. I was going to forget that one step, but then her comment "I skin whole chickens because I hate the idea of the chicken fat simmering all day in the crock---it also looks disgusting when the chicken is cooked because it's all slimy and icky." stuck in my mind, and I thought, I better try it.
Well, skinning a chicken isn't all that bad and it took 10 minutes at the most.
I had two wonderful and supportive cheerleaders watching me, which also added pressure. If I dropped the sucker, it would be not a pretty picture.
I got about half of the skinning done, and I thought I would show you my cheerleading team in action. That added to the prep time... washing hands.. drying... finding the camera.... and hoping they didn't jump onto the counter while I was out of the room for 10 seconds.
Chicken was on by 9 and cooked by 4. I let it sit on warm while the rest of supper was cooked.
There was tons of juice at the bottom, and the spices added a nice spice to the chicken and the juices. I made a nice little gravy out of the juices and with potatoes and brocolli... it was a very yummy supper.
Stephanie turned her year of blogging recipes into a book that will be released in October. You can get it from Amazon and I have mine already ordered.... yipee
3 comments:
FUN! Gotta love the power of blogging! I actually made a great stew in the crockpot today....must be the season for crock-poting! lol!
Did you take a pic of the finished product?
It's funny, I have been following her blog for months, but have never made one of her receipes. I think I may order that book.
I made BBQ ribs in my slowcooker this weekend...they were YUMMY!! (and more importantly, EASY!!!)
Jill
Good morning, Donna!
Thank you so much for your sweet and wonderful words---they made me cry. I'm so glad you enjoyed the chicken, it's one of our favorites.
and yay! for skinning the chicken. Your arteries will thank you... ;-)
have a wonderful day, and thank you for making mine.
xoxo steph
Post a Comment