2012.01.05 - Crockpot Roast Chicken, Curried Sweet Potato Salad, Jell-O

I sadly retired my trusty crockpot (best Yankee Swap gift ever) at Christmas time and traded up to a larger model (6 quarts instead of 4).  One of the primary reasons for this was because I was intrigued by the idea of roasting a chicken in a crockpot.

Crockpot Roast Chicken

A's mom knows one of the authors of Our Best Bites, so I was lucky enough to get a signed copy of their cookbook for Christmas.  The "fauxtisserie" chicken definitely stood out to me - I had never thought about using the crockpot as a roaster before.  I took the opportunity to try out "probe" mode with my new slow cooker -- which means it would set itself to warm after the meat reached the desired temperature.  Gadgets!

I definitely did not season the chicken enough, but it turned out nice and tender and you can't get much easier than it.

Curried Sweet Potato Salad

I don't like curry or almost any kind of Indian food, but I do like curry power in some applications.  This salad is definitely one of those.  The sweet potatoes match well with the curry power and the craisins and pecans add nice crunch and chew.  I definitely could see this as a dish pairing with post-Thanksgiving leftovers.

Lego Jell-O

I don't remember how we got on the topic, but we had a running joke at dinner about how I should make Jell-O.  So I did.  A bought me a Lego silicone mold ages ago, and I hadn't found a good use for it yet.  I wanted to do something other than straight Jell-O, so I looked up recipes and found this one that mixed in some evaporated milk and white chocolate.  The jello was not too bad, and the shape was fun!