Cheap & Easy! (Chicken Thighs with Carrots & Potatoes, that is!)

I made a super easy and quite delicious chicken dinner in my crockpot tonight and absolutely could not refrain from sharing the recipe!  I got the recipe from an internet posting of a 2009 Southern Living magazine recipe.  And the ingredients all came from either my pantry or my freezer.  That's right - this meal didn't cost me a cent to make today!  If I were to buy the ingredients, they would've easily been less than $15 in total.  Fifteen dollars to feed a family of 4.  Crazy!!  And, to top it all off, it was SO EASY.  I "chopped and popped" my food in the crockpot in under 15 minutes today at lunch and proceeded to pass out on my couch with the shades drawn, suffering from a terrible migraine.  (Ugh.)  Fortunately, by the time my medication started to work and my migraine was gone, my dinner was ready.  And all I had to do was serve and eat!  Doesn't get simpler than that!

Recipe for Chicken Thighs with Carrots and Potatoes

Ingredients:
1 medium onion
4 medium-size new potatoes (about 1 lb.)
2 cups baby carrots
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup dry white wine or chicken broth
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
1 teaspoon paprika
6 skinned, bone-in chicken thighs

**I used 4 frozen boneless, skinless chicken thighs and it's hard for me to believe that the taste was effected much because it was so good!  I also used chicken broth instead of white wine, I omitted the dried thyme (couldn't find any in the pantry) and I used only 3 medium-sized potatoes instead of 4.

1. Halve onion lengthwise, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices.  Cut potatoes into 1/4-inch-thick slices.   Place onion in a lightly greased 6-quart slow cooker; top with potatoes and carrots.  I used EVOO cooking spray to grease the pot and I have a 5-quart slow cooker -- it was the perfect size.

2. Combine broth, next three ingredients, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.  Pour over vegetables. Make sure you mix the broth mixture thoroughly before pouring it over the vegetables.  I thought I had mixed it enough but the salt didn't dissolve entirely so I had some soft clumps of salt ... it didn't noticeably effect the taste, but next time I will make sure to mix it better!


3. Combine paprika and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; rub over chicken.  (I didn't mix them together but instead put them on the chicken separately for convenience sake; I don't see how mixing them together first would make much of a difference.)  Arrange chicken on top of vegetables.

4. Cover and cook on LOW 6 hours or until chicken is done and vegetables are tender.  I think 6 hours is for fresh chicken.  I cooked for just under 7 hours on LOW and the chicken was fall-apart tender.  Yum!

Bon appetit!