If, like many of our friends this week, you’re getting ready for a huge onslaught of guests to celebrate a commencement of one sort or another, think about putting a recipe like this in your slow cooker. The very process of slow cooking blends and brings out flavors, caramelizes and smoothes the natural sweetness in ingredients like tomatoes, and generally turns what was previously a very nice recipe into something entirely more subtle and sublime. Try this chicken cacciatore, in honor of Ann’s graduation.

Her mom doubled it (and added a few more pieces of chicken) for one of this past weekend’s graduation meals. Thank you to Eat At Home Cooks for the original version, and congrats to Ann!!

• 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken, chopped into approx. 1″ bite-sized pieces
• 6-8 drumsticks
• 1 medium-large yellow onion, halved and sliced thinly
• 1 green pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
• 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 6 oz. tomato paste
• 1 /2 c. small white beans (pre-soaked)
• 3 /4 c. water
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 c. leftover red wine (all the alcohol cooks off)
• salt and pepper to taste

Place chicken pieces into a slow cooker. Place onion and peppers on top. Stir together remaining ingredients, and pour over chicken and vegetables. Cook on low 7-8 hours or high 5-6 hours.

Serve with a bowl of brown rice, or whole-grain pasta, or red quinoa. Add a large simple salad of mixed greens dressed with a lemon vinaigrette for a wonderful celebration dinner! Serves 6-8.

Notes: If you don’t have any presoaked white beans on hand, skip the water in the ingredient list, and add a can of rinsed beans in the last 30 minutes of cooking. No harm done. It’s more important to eat more beans than to eat more beans you started dry. And if you’d like a vegan version of this recipe, try substituting tempeh for the chicken and add 3 tablespoons olive oil. And if you don’t have any red wine, apple cider vinegar also works nicely.