Chicken & Sweet Onion Crockpot Dinner

And lacing.

And potty training.

Don’t worry, I didn’t take pictures of that.

With all of our projects going on, and my pledge to get back to the gym, I needed something easy for dinner.  I don’t know why, but I have never used my crockpot to it’s full potential.  I think it’s because when I first started cooking, the only crockpot recipes I could find were heavy on the salt and cream of whatever and just didn’t sound very appetizing.  As I started searching for gluten-free recipes though, I came across some simple and healthy crockpot recipes from Stephanie O’Dea.  I had visited her site a few times before but never realized that all of her recipes are gluten-free because her youngest daughter has celiac disease.  Stephanie’s Vietnamese Roasted Chicken sounded interesting, so I gathered all of the ingredients together,

including my brand new gluten-free soy sauce.

As I inspected the fish sauce, I noticed that it was a little bit on the expired side.

Oops, over a year old and barely used.  Time to get some more!

So instead of fish sauce, I used some red pepper flakes. I know, I know, they are not the same thing at all.  So what?

After pouring the sauce over my frozen chicken thighs, I felt like the pot was a bit bare.

So I added some thickly sliced onions.  I’m so glad that I did because they came out sweet and caramelicious.

The result?  Tender chicken, sweet onions, dinner that the whole family raved over.  The best part?  I had a fantastic workout, the kids got to go swimming, and we all came home to a hot meal ready to go.  Hooray for the crockpot!