Slow Cooker Chicken Stew with Dumplings and Stout

Well, St. Patrick’s Day just kind of crept up on me and now it’s here. Before we move on to the next fun food holiday recipes, here’s just one more for March 17. I’ve already said that my little kitchen leprechaun refused to let any green recipes be successful this year so I had to try another way to get a little “luck o’ the Irish” into my kitchen. Using Guinness, which hails from Dublin, Ireland, in my recipe is the perfect way to infuse a little “green” into your dinner, whether for St. Patrick’s Day or any other day. Plus any time I find myself with a little extra time, I consider myself VERY lucky, and using my slow cooker might just save me a few minutes. Win!

I started off with boneless skinless chicken thighs, which I dredged in a little flour, salt, and pepper. I lightly browned them over the stove, then put them into the ceramic bowl of the slow cooker. To the chicken drippings I added more flour, plus a bottle of Guinness and some brown sugar and stirred it all together until it was smooth. I poured this over the chicken thighs in the slow cooker, then added chopped carrots, onion, garlic, thyme, and chicken broth.

I cooked the stew on high for 3 1/2 hours, then added in fluffy dumplings and peas, seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked for another 30 minutes.

It turned out like the Irish version of matzah ball soup, very hearty and flavorful, and a delicious comfort food. Perfect with my quick Irish Soda Bread! Slainte!

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Slow Cooker Chicken Stew with Dumplings and Stout (adapted from The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook)

Yield: serves 6-8

6 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, divided

1 teaspoon salt, divided, plus more to taste

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed

4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, divided

2 teaspoons dark brown sugar, packed

1 2/3 cups Guinness Stout

6 carrots (1 pound), peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

2 large onions, thinly sliced

2-4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 cup lower sodium chicken broth

2 cups frozen peas

For the dumplings:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup shortening

1 1/2 teaspoons dried dill

1/4 cup water

Directions:

1. Combine 6 tablespoons of flour with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper in a shallow bowl. Coat the chicken thighs in the flour mixture and transfer to a plate.

2. Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add half of the chicken and cook until well browned, 2-4 minutes per side. Transfer to a slow cooker once browned. Reduce heat to medium, add 2 more teaspoons of oil, and cook the remaining chicken until browned. Add to slow cooker.

3. To the drippings from the chicken remaining in the skillet, add 1/2 cup flour, the Guinness, and the brown sugar, and stir until smooth. Transfer to the slow cooker.

4. Add the carrots, onion, garlic, and thyme to the slow cooker. Pour the chicken broth on top. Cover and cook on high for 3 1/2 hours.

5. For the dumplings, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. With your hands, add in the shortening, dill, and a little bit of the water at a time to make a soft dough. Shape the dough into walnut-sized balls between the palms of your hands. Add the dumplings to the slow cooker at the 3 1/2 hour mark.

6. Add the peas (they can still be frozen) right after the dumplings. Cook on high for another 30 minutes then switch to warm until ready to serve. Serve with Irish Soda Bread.

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Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

This post is part of a Pi Day themed Blog Swap and comes from Kristin at Dizzy Busy and Hungry. Over the past few months that I’ve been blogging I’ve learned a lot from interacting with Kristin and from following her blog, so I am so excited to be featuring one of her recipes here at The Dinner Pages! 

Hi, my name is Kristin and I blog over at Dizzy Busy and Hungry! My blog is all about easy, healthy, family-friendly food and how to fit it all in to today’s busy schedules. I am excited to be participating in this blog swap meet today! Many thanks to Jessie for hosting my post on her blog. We hope that our wonderful readers will enjoy this little variation from our regular posts!

The theme for our swap today is “Pi Day”. You remember pi from your math classes, right? It is an irrational number and one of the most widely known mathematical constants, equal to the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter (can you tell that I used to be a math teacher?). Anyway, all you need to know today is that pi is typically rounded to 3.14, which is why March 14th is also known as Pi Day. And the best way to celebrate Pi Day is with pie! Sweet, savory, fruity, or chocolatey, it doesn’t matter as long as it is pie. It just so happened that I had a gem of a pot pie recipe waiting in the queue to be written up, so Pi Day provides a perfect opportunity to share it! I have made chicken pot pie before, but I love this recipe because it is super easy and because most of the work is done by the crock pot during the day while I am at the office. Then, when I get home and we are ready to eat dinner, I just transfer the chicken and veggies to a 9×13 baking dish, pop some packaged refrigerated biscuit dough on top, and bake for about 15 minutes. My entire family LOVES this recipe! Even my picky eater (who typically turns his nose up at vegetables) happily gobbles up every morsel of this dish. It is perfect for a weeknight meal if you can just spare 10 minutes in the morning to get everything in the slow cooker. (If it makes your morning easier, cut up your potatoes the night before and store in the refrigerator covered with water.)

Here’s a totally optional hint if you like the nice golden color and sheen on the biscuits: Take a minute to whisk an egg white together with a tablespoon of water and brush it over the top before placing the baking dish in the oven for the final 15 minutes of cooking. Don’t those biscuits look beautiful? Most nights I really can’t be bothered with a cosmetic step like that, but every once in a while I like to get fancy. 🙂

Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/4 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 1 (20 ounce) jar chicken gravy
• 3 or 4 red potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 (10 ounce) bag mixed vegetables (your favorite, no need to thaw)
• 1 cup diced onion (can be frozen, no need to thaw)
• 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 (8 biscuit) tube refrigerated biscuit dough

Instructions:

1. Place the chicken in the slow cooker.
2. Combine the gravy, potatoes, mixed veggies, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and paprika, and pour over the chicken.
3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
4. 20 minutes before you want to serve dinner, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
5. Transfer the chicken and veggies to a 9×13 baking dish. In the process, pull the chicken apart a little so there are chunks throughout the mixture.
6. Cut each round biscuit in half from side to side (to form two thinner rounds) and place on top of the chicken and veggies, touching each other.
7. Bake for about 15 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown on top.

Thanks again to Jessie for hosting my blog swap Pi Day recipe post! Please feel free to stop by my blog (Dizzy Busy and Hungry) and see what else I have cooked up lately, or follow me on social media!

Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter | Google+

Enjoy, and Happy Pi Day!

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Below the collage are links to all of the blogs that participated in our

Blog Swap Meet: Pi Day Recipes

Hosted by

Edward from If You Can Read, You Can Cook and Kristin from Dizzy Busy and Hungry

Stop by and visit them all!

Chef Mireille’s East West Realm

The Dinner Pages

Dizzy Busy and Hungry

Fearless Dining

If You Can Read, You Can Cook

Kneaded Creations

Polish Housewife

Asian Glazed Chicken Wings

This deliciously different game day recipe makes use of a really helpful appliance, the slow cooker. My husband and I were a bit slow on the uptake with regard to slow cookers. Honestly we bought one about 7 years ago, used it once or twice, and actually had it in our “donate” box until my son came along and all of a sudden, the slow cooker came in from the garage and we asked ourselves what we had been thinking by shunning it for all those years! So I was very excited when Slow Cooker Revolution Volume 2 was one of the lightning deals on Amazon recently and I managed to snag a copy for almost half price. This is the first recipe we’ve tried from this book and based on our success, I imagine there will be more to come.

These glazed wings are a slight departure from your standard Buffalo wings. They’re sweet thanks to plenty of hoisin sauce but a bit of Sriracha packs just the right amount of spice. This recipe doesn’t lend itself to starting in the morning and leaving it in the slow cooker all day for dinner like some others do. You could do that, but it only needs to be in the slow cooker for about 3 to 4 hours so it’ll just spend most of the day hanging out if you start it before work. I think it lends itself better to a weekend treat. If you prep it after brunch you’ll have wings ready in plenty of time before kickoff.

The technique was a little different from other slow cooker wings I’ve made in the past. We first coated the chicken wings with a flavorful dry rub and cooked them on low for a few hours. I expected them to be dried out from cooking them without added liquid, but that wasn’t the case at all. After that, we broiled them on a baking sheet for 10 minutes, until they were nice and crispy on the outside.

I took them out from the broiler, brushed them with a hoisin-rice vinegar-Sriracha sauce and broiled some more, flipping halfway through to brush again. A final coat of sauce after broiling made sure the wings were sticky and delicious.

Serve with eggrolls for some themed appetizers or serve with rice for an anytime entree.

Some notes:
-Using split wings will save you some time. You can certainly split whole wings yourself, like we did, but it would have been faster not to

-If you use Lee Kum Kee Hoisin sauce, it comes in an 8.5 ounce jar. Just use the whole jar, then you don’t need to measure, it’s close enough to a cup.

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Asian Glazed Wings (adapted with minimal changes from Slow Cooker Revolution Volume 2)

1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons granulated garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 pounds split chicken wings

1 cup hoisin sauce

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce

nonstick cooking spray

green onions, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, ginger, garlic, salt, and pepper. Rub the mixture over the chicken wings and place them in a 5 1/2 to 7 quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 3 to 4 hours, until the chicken is tender and cooked through.

2. Adjust the top oven rack so it is about 10 inches from the broiler and heat the broiler. Place a metal rack on top of an aluminum foil lined baking sheet and spray with nonstick spray. Transfer the chicken wings to the rack and broil for about 10 minutes until crisp, flipping the wings halfway through. Discard the liquid in the crock pot.

3. While the chicken is broiling, combine the hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, and Sriracha in a bowl. After the first 10 minutes of broiling, remove the wings from the oven and brush with about 1/3 of the sauce. Return to the oven for another 5 minutes. Turn the wings over, brush with another 1/3 of the sauce and broil for 5 more minutes. Remove from the oven, brush with the remaining sauce. Garnish with green onions, if desired, and serve.

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