Slow Cooker Chicken Stew and Cheddar Biscuits

Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

The photo above doesn’t do justice to how good this chicken stew was.

I like making chicken stew in the slow cooker. The preparation is easy and, like all things made in the slow cooker, you can do other things while your dinner cooks. The only problem I’ve had with making chicken stew in the slow cooker is getting the stew to really thicken up. This takes a little time. The batch in the photo was almost as thick as I wanted it to be, but I was a little impatient and didn’t let it cook long enough to get to my desired level of stewiness. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

You can vary the vegetables in your stew. Cut up large potatoes instead of using the mini-potatoes. Add small whole boiler-type onions instead of cutting up large onions. Whole fresh mushrooms are also an excellent addition to this stew.

I use Old Bay seasoning in my chicken stew. If you don’t have it on hand, you can use poultry seasoning or experiment with your own spice combinations, such as thyme, sage and pepper.

On the day this batch of slow cooker chicken stew was served, my daughter Darcy was visiting and made some baking powder biscuits with cheddar cheese to go along with the stew. That recipe is included here for you, too. 

MA's Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

Chopped and ready for slow cooking

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 3 lbs), cut into 1 ½” chunks

4 medium onions, cut into 8ths

2 tsp garlic, minced

5 ribs celery, thickly sliced

4 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced or diced

1.5 lbs mini-potatoes, peeled or unpeeled, halved if desired

1 cup frozen peas

2 tsp Old Bay seasoning or poultry seasoning

8 cups chicken broth or 3 chicken bouillon cubes with 8 cups boiling water

¼ cup flour

½ cup water or chicken broth

Now cover and cook s-l-o-w-l-y

Place onions, garlic, celery, carrots, potatoes and chicken into slow cooker.

Pour chicken broth over chicken and vegetables. Sprinkle with Old Bay seasoning.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours, or until chicken is cooked through and fork tender.

Add frozen peas and cook for 15 minutes.

In a bowl, whisk together flour and water/broth to make a smooth paste. Stir the paste into the stew. Cover the slow cooker and cook until thickened, about 15 or 20 minutes.

Serve with biscuits or bread.

Makes 8 servings.

Printable Recipe for MA's Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

MA’s Cheddar Biscuits

Chicken Stew with Cheddar Biscuit

Preheat oven to 450º F.

Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

4 tbsp butter or margarine, chilled

2/3 to ¾ cup milk

½ cup grated cheddar cheese

In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and grated cheddar.

Cut the butter or margarine into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender or two knives.

Add the milk slowly, stirring only until the soft dough forms a ball.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead lightly for a few seconds.

Pat or roll out the dough to ½ to ¾ inch thickness.

Cut with floured biscuit cutter.

Place the biscuits on the prepared pan.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until biscuits are a golden brown.

Makes 10 - 12 biscuits.

Printable Recipe for MA's Cheddar Biscuits

Beery Pork Stew

Beery Pork Stew

There was a very good buy on whole boneless pork loins at the grocery store recently. We bought two. If you do this, you’ll want to cut the pork loins into a few more usable cuts and freeze them for future use. If you’ve never carved up a pork loin before, Doctor BBQ has a great video on Youtube that shows you exactly how to do this.  Give it a try. It doesn’t take long. It’s not hard to do. And you’ll save yourself some money.

After playing butcher shop, stocking up the freezer and feeling pretty proud of myself, I looked for something to do with some of the smaller pieces of pork. I came across several stew recipes that called for beer. We always have a beer around, so I combined a few recipes and put together this beery pork stew using what was on hand. The beer was a lager, which explains the mostly beige pallor of the stew. Nevertheless, it tasted great - no beery aftertaste. I highly recommend serving it with some pumpernickel bread and butter (and your favorite beer if you are so inclined). It also reheats well for lunch the next day.

MA’s Beery Pork Stew

Ready to make beery pork stew

2 lbs pork loin, cut into bite-sized pieces

¼ cup flour

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp freshly ground pepper

1 tsp bacon fat or oil

1 to 1 ½ cups onions, chopped

1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced

3 ribs celery, chopped

4 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

2 or 3 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

½ tsp caraway seeds

1 bay leaf

1 cup chicken or turkey stock

1 10-12 oz bottle beer

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp brown sugar

In a bowl, mix together flour, salt and pepper. Add pork to bowl and coat well with flour mixture.

In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, heat fat or oil over medium-high heat. Add pork and cook until evenly browned.

Add onions and garlic. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients to pan and stir with love.

Bring to a boil.

Cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 to 1 ½ hours or until the pork is tender.

Makes 6 servings.

Printable Recipe for MA's Beery Pork Stew

Rustic Beef Stew and Bannock

Rustic Beef Stew and Bannock

This is the kind of food that warms a cold winter day, which is a good thing because where I live we have about five straight months of those. The comfort from a bowl of steamy beef stew and a chunk of bannock is always welcome.

The stew itself is pretty straightforward. I call it rustic because I leave the veggies and meat in rather large pieces. If you want things to stew up a little faster, just dice things up into smaller pieces (not too small because the meat will shrink as it cooks). You may loose a little of the distinctive taste of each ingredient, but you will save some cooking time. You can change out the vegetables to suit your taste, just remember that the softer vegetables like mushrooms and peppers won't need to cook as long as the crunchier ones, unless you like them that way like I do.

A word about the beef .... right now the stores I shop in have some pretty high prices on pre-cut stewing beef. I guess it's due to the convenience of having someone do the chopping for you. If you don't want to pay extra for that, or you don't like the look of meat they've chosen or the size of the dice they've used, check out what beef is on sale. Almost any steak or roast can be cut up to make a stew. And it doesn't have to be a pricey cut, because it's going to cook a long time and be tasty and tender.

And about the dried herbs ... please note that I use the same combination and amount of herbs with the flour to season the meat as I do to flavour the sauce. So you will have to measure out the herb combination twice.

This recipe makes a lot of stew, about 8 good-sized servings. Rather than halfing the recipe, I suggest making it all and freezing what you don't want to eat right away.