Slow Cooker 40 Cloves of Garlic Chicken #4theLoveofGarlic

Tomorrow is National Garlic Day.  We have been celebrating for the past 6 days with Cam of Culinary Adventures with Camilla.  She invited 6 of us to try out the Garject garlic press from Dreamfarm and had Melissa's Produce provide us with a slew of garlic.  We received regular garlic, minced garlic, black garlic and elephant ear garlic.  We got TONS of garlic!!

Dreamfarm is also allowing us to raffle off 6 of their amazing garlic presses.  The Garject is not your ordinary garlic press.  It is heavy duty and equipped with an ejection handle so that you need not worry about peeling the garlic before mincing.  I can't tell you how much I love mine!

I have been going Garlic Crazy around here.  I have made Quick and Easy Garlic Knots and this yummy Garlic Soup with Noodles and Peas.

You can learn more about this celebration and enter to win your very own Garject by going to my Intro post.  Hurry, the raffle ends tomorrow.

The first thing I thought of when I received all this garlic was 40 Clove Chicken.  I had made 40 Clove chicken once, before I started blogging.  I braised it in the oven and it was decadent and delicious.  The day that I was making this was an errand day and I had planned to do a Whole Chicken in the Crockpot.  I decided to make my 40 Clove Chicken in the Slow Cooker to enjoy this wonderful gift I had gotten.

The Garject, as wonderful as it is, did not help me at all with this recipe.  All 40 cloves had to be peeled.  The best way to do this is to give each one a sharp whack with the side of a butcher knife. The skin will split and then easily peels off.  I had gotten a garlic stone as a sponsor gift for an event last year, but haven't been able to locate it since our move.  That doesn't mean that I had to run my errands with my hands reeking of garlic.  Wash your hands, rinse, rub them on your stainless steel sink, wash again, rinse and all that garlic odor will be gone.

I placed the chicken, breast down into the slow cooker, surrounded it with sweet potatoes and garlic and left to take care of all my running around.

When we got home the house smelled absolutely amazing.  I guess a vampire may not have thought it smelled wonderful but I, a self professed garliholic, swooned when I walked in the door.  Within moments I had the chicken carved and the dinner was served.  We had plenty of chicken for dinner that night using the breast meat and enjoyed pot pie using the dark meat and leftover gravy later in the week.

Slow Cooker 40 Cloves of Garlic Chicken

adapted from Cooking Light

1 whole chicken (3-4 lbs)

1 c. chicken stock

1/4 c. dry white wine

3 T. flour

2 T. butter, melted

2 T. lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

2 t. Italian Herbs

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered

40 cloves of garlic, peeled

Treat crock of slow cooker with cooking spray.  Wash the chicken with cold water, season inside and out with salt and pepper and place breast down into the crock. Scatter the sweet potatoes and garlic around the chicken.  Whisk together the chicken stock, wine, flour, butter and lemon juice.  Pour over the chicken, potatoes and garlic.  Sprinkle with the Italian herbs.  Cover and cook on high heat for 6-8 hours.

Remove the chicken to a cutting board.  Remove the skin and wings, discard.  Cut off the drumsticks and thighs, place onto a platter.  Remove the breast meat from the carcass and remove any bones, slice and place onto the platter.  Surround with potatoes and garlic.  Strain any fat from the gravy. Ladle gravy over chicken and serve.  Print Recipe