Tangy Ranch Chicken - Quick and Easy, in the Crock Pot!

I recently purchased my first crock pot*, and after trying a few recipes I found on Pinterest, I took matters into my own hand yesterday and came up with this delicious tangy ranch chicken recipe.

Tangy Ranch Crock Pot Chicken à la Sweet Freedom!

The prep is quick and easy! 20 minutes or so in the morning, and 6-8 hours later you'll have a dinner your family will love!

Ingredients:

• 2 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2-3 cups russets potatoes (approx. 3 medium potatoes)
• 2 cups baby carrots
• 1 can whole kernel corn
• 2 packets (2-oz each) Hidden Valley Dry Ranch Dressing mix
• 8 slices bacon
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup Ranch Dressing (prepared)
• 1/8 cup mayonnaise or sour cream
• 1//8 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp parsley flakes
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions:

1. Scrub the russet potatoes, then chop them into 2-inch chunks. No need to peel them! Place them in the crock pot.
2. Add 1/2 cup water.
3. Place chicken breasts on top of potatoes in pot. Optional: I pound my chicken breasts with a meat tenderizer first; I've made this recipe with and without tenderizing first, and I just prefer mine after tenderizing. But your chicken will be plenty tender without the pounding, should you choose to skip it!

   

   my trusty meat tenderizer hammer

4. Cover the chicken breasts with 8 strips of just barely cooked bacon. Note: I use Hormel Microwave bacon, and cook 2 packets (the packets each contain 4 strips) separately, for 1 minute and 50 seconds each, while I'm prepping the potatoes. Couldn't be quicker or easier, and there is absolutely no clean-up!

   

   Hormel Microwave Bacon - so easy and delicious, and no clean-up!

5. In a small bowl, combine the following: both packets of Ranch Dressing Mix, the prepared Ranch Dressing, the mayo or sour cream, the olive oil, the pepper, and 1/4 cup water. Stir until well mixed. Add a little more water if necessary to dissolve the Ranch Dressing Mix. Layer this mixture evenly over the chicken and bacon. Cover with parsley flakes.
6. Wash the carrots and place in crock pot.
7. Add the whole kernel corn on top last.
   Add the remaining 1/2 cup water around the bottom of the crock pot.
8. Cook on high for 6 hours or on medium for 8-9 hours.

Enjoy!!

Let me know if you try the recipe, and what you think!

*My first crock pot for COOKING - of course, I have 4 crock pots at work: 2 for liver of sulfur (one for silver only, one for copper), one for pickle, 1 for vermiculite (for annealing enameled head pins):

Here's my enameling set-up, with my pickle pot on the left, and the vermiculite pot at lower right:

Just can't enamel without a few crock pots!

A close-up of my freshly-enameled headpins, annealing in warm vermiculite in a crock pot:

Vermiculite in a hot crock pot is perfect for annealing enameled headpins!

Poultry Capital of the World!!

Part 2 of the "vacation" Bailey and I took a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, it really wasn't a vacation - we were there (Gainesville, GA) because our friend was having bypass surgery in the Northeast Georgia Medical Center.

The post-op CCU had extremely limited visiting hours, so we had a lot of time to kill in between our treks to the hospital, and I'll tell you how we filled up our time in my next post.

John was moved from CCU to the Step-Down Unit on Wednesday morning, so we left the hospital around 10:15 AM, hurrying back to the hotel to check out, and then we were off to grab some brunch.

As we stepped out of the hospital, we both noticed immediately that the whole town smelled like fried chicken - it was very strange, but it was a great smell! But we wondered why Gainesville would smell like Fried Chicken....

And then we remembered this strange little monument that we passed on our way to the hospital everyday (and it is conveniently located next to the IHoP!)

All we had really noticed everyday was there there seemed to be a statue with a rooster on top of it.

We didn't give it a whole lot of thought until that day we smelled chicken wafting through the town...

so I stopped at this little park on my way out of town.

Yep, that's a rooster all right.

And can you tell by that brilliantly blue sky that it was about 11 degrees outside?

I had stumbled upon Georgia Poultry Park!

Sorry kids, there are no rides at this park...

Georgia Poultry Park.... Who knew?

No chickens running around, either - so this isn't the poultry equivalent of a dog park.

Apparently, Gainesville is the cradle of Georgia's Poultry Industry.

At this point, I was revising my opinion of what we had smelled earlier at the hospital. Probably NOT fried chicken.

We passed this sign everyday on our trips to the hospital - apparently in Gainesville, if you are DUI, this is where you go.

This is good info for the rest of us who are out driving around. - at least they collect 'em all in one place!

More fascinating Gainesville tourism info in my next exciting post!