Slow cooker chicken with tomatoes, basil and artichokes

French basil chicken

From “Healthy Slow Cooker” by Judith Finlayson

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 medium onions, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon herbes de Provence

½ teaspoon or more sea salt

½ teaspoon cracked peppercorns

½ cup white wine

1 cup chicken stock

1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes

1 14-ounce can artichoke hearts, drained

3 pounds bone-in chicken thighs (8 pieces)

2 cups chopped red bell pepper

½ cup chopped fresh basil

Method

Heat oil in skillet. Saute onions until softened. Add garlic, herbes de Provence and seasonings. Add wine and cook 1 minute. Stir in stock and tomatoes. Bring to a boil and stir in artichoke hearts. (The recipe notes that you can make the recipe up to this point and store the sauce until you're ready to cook.)

Put chicken in the bottom of a slow cooker. Cover with tomato mixture and cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 3. Stir in red pepper and cook for another 30 minutes. Stir in basil.

Rating: A decent sort of casual meal when the weather gets cool and you want something warm and hearty. It’s very runny, so you’ll need to serve it over something with absorption power. I opted for polenta. I wouldn’t serve this to company; it’s more of a humble at-home dish. This isn’t one of those crockpot chicken dishes where you can serve individual pieces of chicken because it falls apart even before you start dishing it up. Bits of chicken were floating on the surface when I added the peppers; it’s self-deboning. If I make it again, I might try adding dried basil in along with the herbes de Provence for a more assertive flavor. At any rate, it worked fine enough for something warm to have ready in between opening the door to give random neighbor children more candy than is good for them.