September Chicken Stew

Defrost three frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts in microwave for 3 lbs worth of time, then microwave on high for 5 minutes.

Fill 3-quart crockpot 1/3 way with mixed fresh-chopped white and purple carrots. Pour in liquids from chicken, then cut into half-bite-sized pieces and place in layer evenly atop carrots. Sprinkle with 1.5 tsp freeze-dried drill, 1 tbsp freeze-dried garlic, and 2 tsp kosher garlic. Peel 4-6 cloves of elephant garlic and chop into bite-sized pieces, arranging atop chicken. Peel and dice 6 very small red candy sweet onions and place spread in layer above this.

Core and chop 1 French butter, 1 comice, and 1 Korean apple pear. Add across top in layer. Pour in 3/4 cup chicken broth, 1/3 cup blueberry pomegranate juice, and a couple splashes each pomegranate wine and golden rum. Cover and cook on low for 10 hours.

The carrots and pears both become gloriously tender and perfect, and the chicken, as you might see, is turned a very interesting dark color by the natural dyes in the carrots and onions. Everything blenjded together very well, so that it wasn't as colorful as many times I've worked with these bright carrots and onions but was quite delicious. Elephant garlic cooked long like this can be eaten in large chunks just like any other stew vegetable.

We only used half of the carrots shown, due to the small size of our crockpot, and are saving the others for anothe recipe. We also used bread during our second helping to soak up all the nice rich liquids (brown rice bread for my wife, wheat for me). A lot of the prime ingredients, namely the carrots, onions, and pears, are ones that are only seasonally available.