Recipe: Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciotore.

I love love love my slow cooker, and this is one of my go-to recipes for it. My day always feels a bit happier when I know I have a yummy dinner already cooking, partly because I’m looking forward to it, and partly because I feel a bit smug for being organised.

It also means I don’t have the ‘witching hour’ hanging over me, when I announce I need to go and cook and they need me to play with them right now and hang off my leg pleading ‘stop cooking mummy’ (I try not to take that too personally). And if I do play and postpone dinner it only gets worse as their hunger builds.

So, the burning question: DID MY CHILDREN EAT IT? One ate the chicken. The other refused, and then his gran gave him some bounty bar, so any hope of later success was dashed.

In the past they have enjoyed this dish though (with the offensive olives removed), but it seems to be more popular with mash, despite the fact that these potatoes were all buttery and crispy and yummy.

As with most slow cooker recipes, I do either 8 hours on low or 4 on high, and this all went in after breakfast.

Ingredients (enough for 3 adults and 2 small children):

• 6 Chicken thighs.
• 1 onion, sliced.
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed.
• Small bottle white wine.
• 80ml chicken stock.
• 80ml passata.
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste.
• 1 teaspoon caster sugar.
• Dried parsley.
• Couple handfuls of sliced black olives.
• Green beans as desired. Or peas.

(I only had dried parsley, I would have used fresh or dried basil or fresh parsley otherwise.)

Heat some oil in a frying pan (I use coconut oil) and brown the chicken. Put in the slow cooker.

Fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes, then pour in the wine and reduce by half. Add the herbs, sugar and paste.

Transfer to the slow cooker and stir in the stock (I used homemade this time, from the freezer, so I’ve no idea if I actually used 80ml, but it looked about right) and passata (again homemade).

Add the olives and green beans (or peas. I think the kids prefer peas) about 10 minutes before you serve. Season to taste.

I usually serve with mash, but I fancied crispy potatoes, so I sliced and boiled them before tossing in flour and frying them in butter.