Chicken, leek and mushroom slow cooker casserole recipe

I love this cooler weather. It means I can wear jeans, sleep better at night and not feel guilty about watching television in the evenings. And… I love winter food. There’s nothing better than a slow cooker meal. Do you love this cooler weather too?

Slow cooker meals are good on those days when you’ve got a lot on {whether work or play}. Wednesday was that day for us. We had swimming, a school disco, a meeting to go to, and Hubby at work all day… so I popped this on in the morning and it did all the work itself during the day, ready for us to eat at night.

This slow cooker meal I’m sharing today is a must-try recipe. It’s one where the ingredients just make magic happen. When you put chicken with thyme, and leeks, and garlic and a little bit cream… it’s just good. Really good.

You can use chicken thighs or chicken drumsticks for this recipe. I just grabbed drumsticks from the deli section of Coles {they’re RSPCA-approved}, when I grabbed the bacon. Grab whatever is cheaper, because it doesn’t really matter – either will be yummy. As per usual you can grab all the beautiful Aussie-grown vegetables from the produce section.

Chicken, leek and mushroom casserole

7 rashers of bacon, cut into strips
50g butter
2 medium leeks, white part only, sliced, washed, drained
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/2kg chicken pieces
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
300g button mushrooms, quartered
2 tablespoons cream
Salt & ground black pepper, to taste

Method

♥ In a large frying pan, cook the bacon for 3 minutes or until browned. Place into the slow cooker.
♥ Melt 1/2 the butter in the frying pan over low heat. Add the leeks, garlic, and thyme and cook for 10 minutes or until the leeks are tender. Place into the slow cooker.
♥ Place the chicken pieces in a large bowl {or in a bag}, sprinkle with the flour and toss to coat. Melt 1/2 the remaining butter in the frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 1/2 the chicken pieces and cook for 2 minutes each side or until golden.
♥ Remove from the pan and place into the slow cooker. Add the remaining chicken pieces and any flour left in the bowl and cook over medium-high heat for 2 minutes on each side or until golden. Remove from the pan and place into the slow cooker.
♥ Add wine to the frying pan and bring to the boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 1 minute, scraping the base of the pan/dish with a wooden spoon, to dislodge any residue left on the base. Place it into the slow cooker.
♥ Add the stock and mushrooms to the slow cooker and stir to combine. Cook for 6-8 hours.
♥ Once cooked, stir in the cream and season with salt and pepper. Serve with mashed potato or cooked rice.

For other slow cooker meals, it’s a great time-saving idea to spend some time preparing and freezing slow cooker meals. You can place everything into large Glad bags: so chop your meat, vegetables, add in your sauce and herbs and then place it in your freezer. That way you only have to grab it out of the freezer and put it into your slow cooker and you don’t have to think about it again until night time.

Other slow cooker meals to try can be found here, or in the Coles magazine. Some I’m going to try are:
♥ Slow cooker beef ragu
♥ Slow cooker chicken with pesto butter
♥ Slow cooker red lentil soup
♥ Slow cooker upside-down almond and mandarin cake
♥ Slow cooker osso buco

What do you love about the cooler weather?