Ang: 1; Chicken: 0

I cooked my first ever whole chicken this past week... for the most part, it was actually pretty easy (easy peasy some might say).  Just threw it in the crockpot with some spices (thyme + italian seasoning), half a red onion, a sliced up lemon, and some garlic cloves.  Set it to "low" and waited till the end of the work day.

Easy, right?  For most people, yes.  For me, not quite.  You see, I don't do well with raw meat - it's all slimy and salmonella-y (well, chicken is, at least) and I just don't care for it.  Well, that's not entirely true, I suppose - I don't mind it when its supposed to be raw-ish (i.e. sashimi or steak) but a whole chicken?  That was a hurdle.  But one that I faced - something I am quite proud of myself for doing.  My reward was a SUPER tender dinner, with tons of leftovers for me to use in a couple more dinners.

So here's the synopsis:

Pros:

since it was a whole chicken, Daniel got to enjoy dark meat while I delved into the white stuff 

it was the first crockpot meal that we have tried and liked (read: hasn't turned to mush)*

there was SO much meat on the thing - which equals double (or maybe even triple!) dinner duty 

having the carcass = a chance to attempt home-made chicken broth (while perhaps not a highlight for most, this gets me very excited - I love trying new things in the kitchen)

very little prep time

*which is more than great, since we have 4, sometimes 5 pre-booked evenings a week and crockpot cooking = banked precious time!

Cons:

slimy, gross, raw chicken that I had to touch 

my irrational fear of burning the house down as a result of crockpot cooking with no one home 

 (ok, I'll be honest, I took it to work with me this time to alleviate said fear - I can only tackle one fear at a time!)   

If you ask me, that's a win!  :)  Oh, and I've already used the leftovers in a second dinner, but more on that later.