Saturday, January 11, 2014

Sustainable Saturday - Crock Pot Chicken and Cancer Treatment

My mother in law has a gigantic crock pot, which a relative gave to her several years ago.  It is too heavy for her to manage any more, and, overall, she has decreased her cooking in recent years.

We knew we would have to help care for her this weekend and at time beyond, not knowing if she would have any appetite after surgery to implant a radioactive device to treat her cancer.   But even if she didn't, we had my brother in law, and ourselves, to feed.  Fortunately, so far, her appetite hasn't been affected that much.

Cooking for someone with cancer is a new experience for us.

There is an indoor farmers market about 15 minutes away from my mother in law, but we decided we wouldn't go, at least for this first visit, until we knew more about my mother in law's appetite for food.

Last week, we did some farmer's market shopping in preparation for our visit.  We bought:

For starters, the most delicious crackers I have ever found. (I've already inhaled a lot of them, and may not have enough for her!)

Some goat yogurt cheese.


A large chicken.

My brother in law, who is developmentally disabled with a condition called autism, is probably a lot more adventurous with foods than he might have been otherwise.  Many individuals with autism eat from a small variety of foods but my mother in law always made sure he ate healthy.

His favorite food is chicken.

We thought of my husband (we can't leave my mother in law alone) taking his brother to the farmer's market, but the one time we did that a couple of years ago, he didn't enjoy himself.  As it is, they will need to go out today for some supplies. That kind of shopping he enjoys.

Our plan for today is to slow cook the chicken in the crock pot-we are not sure how, though. We've only used her crock pot once (we don't slow cook at home), and the beef cut we stewed came out so delicious, we are eager to find out how well our chicken experiment will go.

We had thought about chicken cacciatore, but the tomatoes would make it acidic.  Ditto for the recipes that call for Italian salad dressing. Acidic foods, apparently, are a "no-no" for this style of cooking.  We'll have to figure something out that works for all of us.


We'll let you know next week how our cooking experiment worked out.

Do you enjoy crock pot (slow cooking) cooking?

2 comments:

  1. I've used the crock pot in the past. I suggest heating the chicken in water with vegetables until bubbling and then transferring it to the slow cooker. The simple flavors are wonderful. Hope your catering works out.

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  2. Alana,
    My crock pot is one of my kindred spirits. I love to put dinner in it in the morning and just smell it cooking it all day long. After you've stripped that chicken that you've roasted from the bones, consider making bone broth to get all the goodness out of those nutritious bones! I wrote a post about it (as you might have guessed!) :http://vomitingchicken.com/bone-broth-new-bff/ By the way, I admire your example in caring for your family members. That's the way it oughta be! Blessings to you!

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