Finally...another recipe!

Happy Belated Halloween! I sincerely hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday. My apartment complex celebrated with our own get-together potluck. My contribution was the edible pumpkin patch to the right. This project idea was from the Hello Cupcake! book I've mentioned before in other posts. If you like being creative, definitely pick this book up! I will take credit for the presentation idea. The plate is my pizza pan and the "grass" is coconut colored with a little bit of green food coloring--perfect for making a "home" for the pumpkins. Since I am known in the complex as the one with the vegetable garden, making a pumpkin patch seemed like a cute idea.

I've also acquired another cookbook recently. My aunt and uncle got Scooter and me a slow cooker cookbook to help us save time since we're now both working full-time. We've already tried two recipes (both a success), and I'll be putting another one to the test tomorrow. If you want to check out the book for yourself, it can be found here on Amazon. We made the Chicken with Golden Raisins recipe this last weekend, and of course changed it up a bit. Here's our version (and it was soooooooo good!).

What you'll need:
1 lb. thick-cut bacon
3/4 c. flour
8 bone-in chicken thighs, with the skin
1 c. dry red wine (we used the Clos du Bois Cabernet Sauvignon)
1 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. golden raisins
salt and pepper to taste
4-qt. slow cooker

What you'll need to do:
1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, fry up the bacon. I suggest a cast-iron skillet if you have it, as it will cook the chicken evenly and crisp the skin nicely. You can cook the bacon in batches, pouring the excess bacon fat into a coffee mug. Bacon should be cooked until slightly soft. Set the bacon aside for later.
2. Keeping the skillet over medium-high heat, add a thin layer of retained bacon grease to the bottom of the pan. Put the flour into a flat dish or pie pan. Take each piece of chicken one at a time and dredge in the flour, then add it to the skillet skin-side down (don't crowd the chicken--you may need to cook it in batches). Cook the chicken until it is brown on each side and the skin is crispy, about 5-8 minutes per side.
3. Move the chicken to your slow-cooker. Once all the chicken is cooked, add the wine to the skillet a little at a time. Be very careful!! Adding the wine to the hot grease all at once could cause the hot liquid to splash or the wine to ignite if you're using a gas stove! After adding the wine, scrape the bottom of the pan to get all of the drippings. Once the wine has cooked down--after about 2-3 minutes--add the liquid from the skillet to the slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper. Note that the bacon will be adding salt to the recipe, so you may want to hold back a bit with the salt.
4. Cover and set the slow cooker setting to LOW and cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
5. Stir in the cream, raisins, and bacon. Cover and set the slow cooker to HIGH and cook for 1 hour. Serve hot over rice or noodles.

The wine you use to cook with is a nice accompanyment to the dish itself, especially if you get one you like to drink. Enjoy!