dinner tonight

Everyone knows that I don't cook. Mike cooks.
I do know how to do a few easy things -- like French Toast, egg salad and this pasta with tomatoes and feta that everyone (but my husband) likes.
The kids got Mike an oversized slow cooker for his birthday, but I have been the one trying it out. I've been looking up recipes, and I have tried a couple of them out --
but I have made this one three times now since everybody loves it.

I do have to mention, I also don't like to change things around too much. When I try a recipe, I follow it. I like to measure things and to be exact (might be why I enjoy baking...)

Mike likes to change things around. He wanted to add bell peppers to it, but I am sticking to this. He can try his bell peppers when he makes it!

I got this slow cooker recipe on eatingwell.com
But I even double this.
(we are are always feeding 7 people + another kid or 2 sleeping over on weekends)


Wine, Tomato & Chicken Recipe

• 4 slices of bacon
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced -- or chopped as small as you can to hide from the kids that say they don't like onions, but eat them all the time
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp dried thyme 
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup white wine
• 1-28oz can diced tomatoes -- I've tried 3 different flavors so far, the one with garlic is good, but the plain one was too
• 1 tsp salt
• 10 bone in skinless chicken thighs 

*I don't eat chicken on the bone. I don't like it. So the first time I did this, I used boneless thighs. The second time we tried it on the bone (Mike took it off for me) and today we are using boneless chicken breast because it's what we had at home. I personally liked the boneless thighs so far.

Cook bacon over medium heat until crispy.
*I don't even like bacon, but I add it

-- Oh and one of the reasons I don't cook... Mike watches me and is sort of antsy, wanting to just take over.
hmmmph
So I let him make up the bacon this time and chop onions. He was happy.

Put the bacon on a paper towel to cool and drain. Save about 2 tbsp of oil in the pan.
Add the onions and cook 5 minutes or so until they are soft.
Then put in the garlic, thyme, fennel seeds, pepper and the bay leaf and cook for a minute.
Add the wine and bring to a boil for about two minutes (keep stirring and all)
Add the tomatoes with their juice -- and then the salt.

Place the chicken in the crock pot and sprinkle on the bacon -- I do more than one layer, and have been just putting the bacon on top of each layer.
Pour the tomatoes, etc over the chicken and put on the cover

Cook 3 hours on high or 6 hour on low.

We eat it over rice and have never had leftovers!

Smells good!!!
We've got an hour to go ~