Jamaican Jerk.

Last night we enjoyed our first "jerk" experience. Not quite the authentic preparation method but this is what you get when you live in our household on a Monday night. I quickly threw this together over my lunch hour in order to have dinner for my hungry family served whenever they were home.

Katy had a 7:15 softball game so timing of this meal failed, big time. It called for 4 - 41/2 hours in the crock pot so in my mind, she and Elie would eat before softball and soccer. No such luck. The chicken apparently wasn't done cooking to the appropriate temps. I think it's because I crammed 6 split fryers into my pot and perhaps had it on a much too low setting. I hate my crock pot for this reason but that's for another blog post. So Kraft Mac shells were served and the girls were on their way. I decided to throw in a few sweet potatoes and white potatoes into the oven set at 200 degrees so they could cook for 2 hours while we were gone. Another fail. Needed more heat. Potatoes were hard! I guess I should have served rice like the recipe called for.

Hannah strolled in around 8:45 from life guard training. We all enjoyed the chicken. Yes, just chicken.

Jerk Chicken in a Crock Pot
1/2 cup sliced green onions
2 TBL grated gingerroot (I use fresh in a bottle)
1 tsp ground allspice
3 fresh jalapeno chiles, seeded and coarsely chopped (I only used 2)
1 tsp vegetable oil
2 tsp seasoned pepper (I used black)
1/2 tsp salt
1 clove garlic
1 TBL honey
5 split chicken fryers (leg/thigh)
Cooked rice
Papaya, peeled and sliced

In a blender or food processor, combine onions, ginger, allspice, jalapeno, oil, pepper, salt and garlic. Process until finely chopped. Stir in honey to form a paste. Brush all sides of chicken. Place a rack in a slow cooker. Place chicken on rack. Cover and cook on LOW 4 - 4 1/2 hours or until chicken is tender. Serve with rice, garnish with papaya.

*A few more tweaks: I put the chicken in the oven on 375 to let crisp up a bit. They said you could put under broiler too but I was busy trying to get the potatoes cooked... I also cheated and only put garlic on the kids chicken since I didn't know how "hot" and spicy this meal was going to end up like.