bacon grease.... it's always the FAT that makes some things taste so delicious....

Thanks for the recipe Drew.

Might have to put together a VC Recipe book... I know there have definitely been a lot posted over the years.

Sounds like an awesome dish.

The bacon grease was actually a convenience factor - my wife had made BLT's for lunch and poured all the grease out of the pan to clean it. How do you say no to that?!?

As far as a recipe book goes, put that braised pork in riesling recipe front and center. Dynamite.

Round 2. Cooked this again, some additional notes.

Added some quartered button mushrooms. How in the hell did I miss this the first time?!? After the mushrooms soak up that wine, they're spectacular!!!

Used bacon grease again for the chicken (from Saturday breakfast), but also had 3 extra pieces of bacon that I cut into smaller pieces and tossed into the crockpot at the end. The bacon was a bit too crispy for my daughter Saturday morning, but after sitting in a crock pot for 90 mins? Yum.

Home-made chicken stock. We picked up a Costco chicken on Thursday and had it for dinner. I took the leftover bones/carcass and tossed it into a pot, sauteed some onions and garlic, dumped that on top of the bones and then poured in some water (enough to cover the carcass). Boiled for 5 minutes and then let simmer over night. Saved it in the fridge and used that in place of the box of chicken stock.

Roma vs. vine tomatoes. Wife is convinced we'd all die of salmonela if I used roma, so I went with vine. Added a bit of tart to the sauce, still up in the air on that. In terms of wine pairing, I think the tart is like to throw off the Rafanelli zin I've got queued for tonight.

No red bell peppers in the store today and the orange were 2 for $6. I went with a jar of "fire cooked red peppers" as a compromise. Sauce is still great, but go with fresh stuff if at all possible.

Boneless/skinless thighs on sale, went that route this time. I like that there's no skin on the chicken, but feel like I'm getting cheated with no bone. Go figure. On the bright side, don't have to worry about fishing bones out of this thing when all the meat slops off.

Finally, cook time - I've been going at it in the kitchen for 2 hrs now and I'm just now dumping the sauce on top of the chicken for the 90 min cook. Great, great, GREAT dish, but it's a bit of a time suck. That said, my 5 year old spent 30 mins pulling the thyme off for me and helping me with flouring the chicken, etc., so it was a bearable 2 hrs.

Drew -
Do you serve with pasta?
I love making garlic bread sandwiches with leftover chicken cacc...

Looks tasty. Did you like it the consistency of stew? Seems like a waste of good fried chicken. ;) Me like texture! crunch, crunch.

God that chicken looks tasty!

It's a difficult call. There's something about chicken that literally disintegrates/melts in your mouth that just rocks. Amazing flavor and it's almost like butter. I've had pork with that consistency, but never chicken. I'm not a big chicken breast fan (I like dark meat and most chicken breasts just come out too dry for my liking), but this was ridiculously juicy and tender. Flip side is that you do lose a lot of that texture and the breading is more for flavor than texture, which is why it's FANTASTIC with the pork fat.