Two birds in the bush IS one in the hand. Wait, what?

Okay, so that's not how the saying goes but it is up in this hizouse when it comes to dinner. There is a super duper easy way to have chicken prepared and ready for when you need it and you get a great bonus. Wanna know what the bonus is? SCHMALTZ!!! Oh, goodness gracious, sweet precious schmaltz. If you know what that is, you are oohing and ahhing right along with me. If not, you are probably thinking, "Isn't that the kind of thing gangsters drink out of a paper bag?". No baby, that's Schlitz. Schmaltz is rendered chicken or goose fat used for frying or as a spread. I use it for neither but if you wanted to you could. I put it ALL in a soup. Seriously great stuff for gut healing. So, it's this easy ready? Put 2 whole chickens (we use organic) in your crockpot, add nothing at all, turn it on low for 11-12 hours, go to bed. Yep, no water, no salt, no veggies. Nothing. In the morning you will have 2 slightly golden chickens sitting in the most insanely gelatinous/schmaltzy broth. The broth is so flavorful and strong that I use it (it comes to about 1-3 cups) just as a base for a huge pot of soup only adding water the rest of the way. The chicken is also crazy flavorful and tender and not mealy like chicken can sometimes be when you cook it in the crockpot. I don't claim to understand the majic that happens to them in the wee hours, but it's amazing. Let the chickens cool and when you are ready start picking the meat off. I usually put one chicken each in a freezer bag but you can certianly seperate it into smaller portions if you are not feeding 6 people like us. I make certian that the chicken is fully cooled before I put it in a plastic freezer bag because I don't like the idea of heating the plastic bag at all. When I make a soup or casserole or whatever I just drop the bag on the tile floor which breaks up the pieces, and add it right in. I usually take all the bones and start a broth for another time while I'm at it but if you don't have the time you can always freeze the bones and do it at a later time. So two birds in the bush, or the crockpot, means you have dinner in the hand when you want it.