"Smoked" Chicken A la Crock!

**Note to self - get batteries for the digital camera. The blog just isn't the same without pictures!**

Tonight's dinner is "Smoked" Chicken A la Crock, baked sweet potatoes, and salad.

I love the flavor of smoked chicken but without a smoker (heck, I don't even have an oven or stove right now!) I have to get creative to get that flavor. After a little experimentation I hit on the right combination of things to get a decent smoky flavor in my slow cooker. This is very simple but tasty and the leftover chicken makes delicious chicken salad.

Wash and rinse chicken pieces or a whole chicken. I prefer to use the whole chicken. Pat it dry and season with a little pepper, salt, and garlic. Put the chicken in the crock of your slow cooker and add 2 Tablespoons of Liquid Smoke. Add sliced onions, bell peppers, squash or any other vegetable you like, put the lid on the crock, set it to low and let cook about 6 hours. Because I don't like the boiled chicken thing that often happens in slow cookers, I drain the broth a few times during the cooking process, freezing it for later use.

When the chicken is cooked, carefully remove it from the crock. It will more than likely fall apart so you might want to put the chicken and vegetables in some netting before you put it in the crock. I don't do that normally but do it sometimes if I think I won't want to mess with fishing out pieces of chicken.

We usually have this with a salad and although it isn't exactly like smoked chicken, it's awfully tasty and is as close as I can get without paying $5 for one from the store! Try it and let me know what you think.