There was a television show when I was a child that I would watch in the afternoon after school. It was called “Get Smart.” There was a bumbling agent, Maxwell Smart or 86, who battled KAOS with Agent 99.  He was always getting himself into situations that he needed saving from and one of his most often repeated lines was, “Missed it by that much.” It is a much repeated phrase in our house.

When my children were little and we were out somewhere and the kids started having a meltdown from being over tired we would look at each other and say, “Missed it by that much.” Well, this chicken was definitely, “Missed it by that much.”

You can cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker and have it stay together but, you have to be precise in your timing of getting it out of the slow cooker. I was not. I left it in an extra half an hour and the breast started to separate and the wing and drumstick came off on one side as we lifted it to the plate from the slow cooker.

Verdict:

This was a moist, juicy chicken that was nice to have for a Sunday afternoon dinner. There was no need to baste the chicken repeatedly during cooking. In fact you don’t want to lift the cover of the slow cooker until the very end to check the temperature of the chicken.

The chicken doesn’t have the nice crispy skin of the oven roasted chicken but as we usually peel that away, it was fine for us. I also liked that I could put the chicken on and forget it until the timer goes off. What I didn’t remember was that I also needed to make the side dishes to go with the chicken BEFORE the chicken was done. So, the chicken was in the slow cooker about an extra 30 minutes which was just enough time to have it start to fall apart. You really want to avoid that happening if you can because it can be difficult to separated out all the bones and stuff once it has fallen apart.

But, other than that it was a great simple dish.

Tip: If your slow cooker does not have a rack insert that you can place the chicken on above the bottom of the slow cooker make five large aluminum foil balls for the bottom of the slow cooker and set the chicken on those so that your chicken is not boiling in its own juices while cooking.

Ingredients:

• 1 (3 1/2 to 4 lb.) whole chicken
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Place insert or aluminum foil balls in bottom of slow cooker. Remove chicken from plastic and make sure all innards are removed from chicken. Place chicken on top of insert or foil balls.
2. Liberally salt and pepper top of chicken.
3. Cook on high approximately 4 hours. You want the chicken to reach a temperature in the thickest part of the thigh but not touch the bone of 150 degrees. Remove the chicken from slow cooker and tent it with aluminum foil until it reaches a temperature of 165 degrees.
4. Serve hot with desired sides.