Slow cooker chicken cassoulet

Chicken Cassoulet

Adapted from “The Healthy Slow Cooker” by Judith Finlayson. This offers 135 gluten-free recipes for health and wellness, but I’m still willing to cook from it.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 onions, finely chopped

4 celery stalks, sliced

8 carrots, peeled and sliced

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons herbes de Provence

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon peppercorns

28 ounces of canned tomatoes, chopped

1 cup chicken stock

4 cups cooked white beans

2 bay leaves

8 chicken thighs, bone-in, (skin off if you want it to be healthy)

1 pound cremini mushrooms

¼ cup finely chopped fresh dill

Method

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook over medium heat until carrots are starting to soften. Add garlic, herbs and spices and cook for 1 minute. Add tomatoes with juice, stock, beans, bay leaves and bring to a boil.

Put half of the bean mixture into a large slow cooker. (Definitely can’t fit this in the old-fashioned size; it filled my 5-quart model to the brim.) Put chicken on top of that layer. Top with mushrooms, then spoon remaining sauce on top.

Cook on low for 6 hours (or on high for 3). Remove bay leaves if you can fish them out. Stir in dill and let cook a few minutes more.

Rating: Sort of like a chicken stew. It's not a wower, but it's certainly not bad. It starts out going in as quite runny, and thickens up a bit -- again, like a stew. It makes a super ton, so if your goal was to feed your spouse while you're on a week of night shifts from hell, mission accomplished.

The main things that probably make this recipe qualify as healthful are skinless chicken and a stipulation that the recipe serves 8. I'm not sure most people would divide the math that way in real life, which makes it a tad less healthful.