Crock Pot Balsamic Chicken Thighs

I was looking at recipes online the other day.  There are a few blogs I enjoy that contain healthy and interesting recipes.  I had a taste for chicken and found this recipe for balsamic chicken thighs and thought it looked good enough to try.  I bought some ingredients that I didn't have and I got to work.

One of the best results of making this recipe is that I learned how to mince garlic.  I have never used fresh garlic before because I have stereotypically been a very lazy cook.  There is an easy conversion for fresh garlic to powdered garlic if you didn't know; it's 1/8 tsp powder to 1 clove garlic.  But I was determined to do the real thing this time, if just to learn something new.  I googled, "how to mince garlic" and found this educational clip that taught me everything I needed to know.  I followed his directions and was quite successful.

I followed the recipe exactly except that I used three pounds of meat to her two pounds of meat.  I wasn't sure that I would like the balsamic vinegar since I have never cooked with it before and maybe never even eaten it before.  So I hoped that adding more meat would lessen the strong flavor of the sauce.  And there were three pounds of meat in the package, so why not?

First you make the rub.

Then you pour the oil and garlic into your crock pot and place the chicken inside.  Then dump the balsamic vinegar on top of it all and cook on high for four hours.

I couldn't tell if it was finished after four hours.  My thermometer was reading different temps for the chicken when I pulled it out of the crock pot so I cooked it a little longer just to make sure.  I fried some green beans on the stove top to go with my chicken.

When I asked my husband whether his lunch he had at a restaurant or this dinner was better, he said the dinner.  He enjoyed it and said he would eat it again.  However, I was kind of confused by it.  The smell of the vinegar while cooking (for four hours) was not appealing to me.  I just let it cook and hoped it would start to smell good.  After about 3 hours it started to smell better to me.  When I first tasted it though it was a lot sweeter than I ever imagined.  When I think of vinegar I certainly don't think of sweetness.  I'm not sure if my palate is just off or if it truly was sweet.  After a few more bites I started to enjoy it and the leftovers have been marvelous.  I will definitely write this one in my cookbook (since I really don't like following recipes off the Internet and having to worry about getting food on my laptop).