Crock Pot Soup

Here is one of my husband's delicious crock pot recipes: 

Ingredients:
2-4lbs (1-2 kg) bone-in poultry (organic/pasture-raised (grass-fed) chicken, cornish hen, turkey)
OR stew meat
OR 1-2lbs poultry and 1 cauliflower
OR 2 large sweet potatoes (diced) for a vegetarian option
Spices (salt, pepper, garlic powder, and any or all of fresh or dried herbs like sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme, mint, parsley flakes, cumin seeds, celery flakes, paprika, cayenne pepper, cinnamon) 
2 onions
1 lb (0.5 kg) baby carrots (or regular carrots)
optionally any or all of: 12 oz (340gr) peas, 1/4 or less red cabbage, 1/4 bunch celery, 5 tomatoes, 2 bell peppers, mushrooms (white, brown, king oyster, etc), nopales
2-3 tablespoons virgin coconut oil or butter from grass-fed cows (more if stir frying)
Diced garlic
2 cups chicken broth organic free-range
(OR if going vegetarian use 2-5 cups hot water)
optional: 1 egg's white, extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
  • First thing to keep in mind is that when you use all of the suggested &optional amounts of meat and veggies a 6 quarts (5.7 liters) crock pot will be full to the very top. Adjust your amounts accordingly if your crock pot is smaller.
  • When the poultry thaws, you can optionally remove the skin, if they are not already skinned. It won't make it less tender, since it's in the crock pot, and that way the seasoning will be on the actual meat. You can also wash the poultry in warm water. 
  • Optionally rub the poultry with olive oil. Then spice your poultry and put them in the crock pot (you can also spice them while in the crock pot). You can put as much as spice and diced herbs that you can barely see the chicken. 
  • Cut 2 onions into big wedges (or you can dice to your taste) and put them in the crock pot around the hens, and also put in baby carrots. You can chop the baby carrots or not, it's whatever you prefer. Also chop the red cabbage, celery, tomatoes (diced small), bell peppers and mushrooms (diced bite size). Surround and partially cover the poultry with the vegetables. However, leave the top of the hens exposed. Depending on which vegetables you are using you can also choose to follow these steps before putting the vegetables in the crock pot:

                  .  Lightly stir fry the peppers and the mushrooms together in coconut oil in a pan, start out
          on high heat, turn to medium/med-low.
                  .  Stir fry the diced onions in a pot in coconut oil on high. When they change color add the
          tomatoes and mix and cook the tomatoes and onions together on medium/med-low heat
          covered with a lid. When the tomatoes start letting their juice, mash them a little bit to help the 
          juicing and continue cooking.

  • Put a little dollop of coconut oil or butter on top of each exposed area of poultry before cooking, so it'll melt on top of it as it cooks. If the poultry you're using didn't form a hump and is flat on the bottom, then put a little bit of coconut oil on each large meaty piece of poultry and dump the vegetables on top.
  • Dash some of the diced garlic into the pot on top of everything. You can also add more black pepper. Put two cups of chicken broth in. You don't cover everything, there should just be broth floating on the bottom. Mix the veggies.
  • Then just cover/seal and cook on low for 7.5 to 8 hours. 
  • Note if you're doing the vegetarian option keep the total cook time to about 6 hours on low unless you like your yams mushy. OR you could also cook on high for about 3 hours.
  • You can optionally take an egg white, and 2-4 hours after turning the pot on, pour the egg white over the exposed areas of poultry (same spot where you put the coconut oil or butter). It is supposed to make the outside a little crispy. 
  • If you want to add peas you would add them in the last 1/2 to 1 hour or so. We use frozen peas and the diced garlic from a jar but everything else we chop fresh.
Step by step pictures of a few different versions below.


Tips: 
  • When you buy food make sure to check ingredients. For instance, where you would least expect it, in some diced garlic jars, I found high fructose corn syrup, the diabetes poison. 
  • I recommend you to skip the olive oil, since olive oil is best eaten raw. Coconut oil and butter on the other hand are great for cooking thanks to their high melting points.
  • After trying this recipe for the first and last time with cornish game hen, we found out that "cornish game hen" were just fancy words for "baby chicken". They're not a different breed of chicken that simply doesn't grow, which is what we had thought. They're slaughtered at 5-6 weeks as opposed to most adult chickens who are slaughtered after 14-40 weeks. A chicken can live about 6 years. I personally no longer feel comfortable eating cornish hen after finding this out.

Bon appetit! Afiyet olsun! Bil-'afiyah! May we thank the Creator of the birds and the vegetables and our hunger and our taste, for satiating our needs and giving us life from these dead foods. May we also thank our Creator for allowing us to be able to find these foods and for having learned about the healthy Paleo ingredients and for allowing us to make healthy food choices. May we also thank our Creator for the laws of nature and for giving humans the ability to discover the laws of nature and make a crock pot and computers and internet. May we also thank our Creator for allowing us to own and use a crock pot or a computer without them breaking down. May we also thank our Creator for our abilities of writing, reading, sharing knowledge, following a recipe, safely chop and process our foods. Alhamdulillah (all praises belong to the One God)