Slow-cooker Chicken with Mustard Seed and Thyme

This was my first experience cooking a WHOLE chicken, and it was no joke! I had bought the chicken to make into soup but then thought, why not do something different? Enter this recipe from The Little Kitchen: So easy and cool! All you do is rub the chicken all over with garlic and a spice rub, put the garlic and a quartered lemon (or half-lemon in my case) inside, place it in your slow cooker on a bed of chopped carrots, celery, and onions, turn the thing on to Low, and go have fun with your friends for ~6 hours. When you come back, put the chicken in a pan under the broiler for 5 minutes, and you have just made something delicious!! And after you’ve devoured it, you can use the carcass for soup – a win-win!

For the spice rub I used:
– Salt
– Paprika
– Cayenne
– Thyme
– Mustard seeds, slightly smashed (not called for but I didn’t have onion powder or garlic powder which were called for, so I thought it could use a little more flavor – highly recommended!)
– Black pepper (they also called for white, but I don’t have any)

Back to the fact that this was a Whole chicken: I guess I’ve never handled an entire animal in that way – the closest I’ve come is holding a baby, which was a little disturbing. And dismantling the thing afterwards was intense too, though not as bad as just with parts because at least you know what everything is! Good for the wannabe Biology Major in me though.