Slow Cooker Fireball Chicken

It’s never ever been a secret that I am not a sports fan. Like, at all. My oldest child is the most rabid basketball fan on the face of the planet. True story. He constantly makes me watch replays and YouTube montages and highlight reels, and it takes every single ounce of strength and self-control to refrain from rolling my eyes, sighing and saying out loud, “Son, I really don’t care.” And, yes, in my worst moment, I’ve done all three. 

But, at forty years old with the battle scars of self-discovery through trial and error to show for it, I am self-aware enough to that know faking it will never get me anywhere good. It just won’t. So it’s not my thing. And I own it.

Underdogs are totally my jam. I will ALWAYS (and I mean ALWAYS) root for the underdog. You know that time when David had to knock out a giant? Totally Team David over here. Or that time a horse ran the Preakness Stakes solo? Totally team Solo Horse (and if you weren’t cheering for Solo Horse I am pretty sure you don’t have a soul so we can’t be friends). Underdogs are the coolest.

Maybe it’s because I’m the patron saint of lost causes. Or because I constantly feel like an underdog myself. But there is something soul tugging about a team of ragtag “losers” showing a team of big bad “winners” who’s boss. I love the little guy. The last placer. The Bad News Bears. These are my people and I will cheer them on with every ounce of my being. Even if I don’t understand exactly what I’m cheering for. 

Except when it comes to my own kids. Because when my own kids are the underdogs, I just want to crawl into a little hole and disappear. 

Despite how awful that sounds, it’s not actually because I’m embarrassed or don’t want them to win. I absolutely 100% am not and do. It’s more that I can’t stand to watch how not winning, repeatedly, affects their little hearts. Kids are funny in that, for the most part, they haven’t developed the social muscle known as “faking it.” So the pain of losing is very apparent. I can watch my child across the field and know, somewhere deep in my mommy gut, that he is about to cry. I can see it in the slump of the shoulders and the dragging of the feet. I feel it as if it were my own. And I cannot take it.

So when my kids are the underdogs I don’t root for the underdog. I (very quietly) root from the game to end and the bleeding to stop. And fast.

This past weekend I found myself in this very position. It was the flag football championship. Connor’s team was battered and bruised, a true Bad News Bears team in absolute last place–not one win to celebrate, just a slew of total butt kickings. Their record was a train wreck, so much so that as they walked onto the field for the first game of the tournament, most of us assumed the loss. 

Even the parents on the team, who love their children more than life itself, were counting them out. Almost like a tourniquet, we wanted to stop the bleeding and cut off the circulation to this awful season. We were tired of the shoulder slumps and the after-game tears. So we wanted to lose, march out of the tournament with as much dignity as we could salvage and love on our kids. That was it.

Somehow, though, our kids didn’t get the message that they were supposed to lose. And despite being outscored in all of their previous games by about 8,000 to 3, they started to win. This group of boys who couldn’t seem to complete a pass, marched into the championship and started to connect. And connect again. Slumped shoulders started to straighten out. The coaches, who I’m sure also secretly assumed they would lose, started to catch wind and perk up. And judging by the yelling on the sidelines, the parents on the other team also started to notice. Like, a lot. 

It’s at this time in the post where we stop and take a moment to remind sports parents everywhere that it’s high time we calm the heck down. This is NOT the Super Bowl. Yet I digress…..

This Bad News Bears Underdog of a team, they won. They lost every single game of the season. By a lot. But they kept playing. And they won. Not just the first game of the championship. But the second. And then the third. 

And those boys, losers by the world’s standards, walked out of that championship with a GIANT first place trophy.

Now I don’t know an awful lot about sports and I don’t really want to. But I do know a life lesson when I spot one. And this little underdog rising had all of the markings of a life lesson and then some. This was GRIT personified.

I’ve got to say, I was proud of them for winning the championship. They showed up on the field, gave it their all and proved themselves to be great little athletes. And all of this is well and good. But that’s not the big picture and not nearly the reason I felt my heart grow about ten sizes and tears well in my eyes when I saw that first place medal around C’s neck.

My heart grew and the tears flowed because those boys had no idea they were counted out. None. They weren’t playing with chips on their shoulders, trying to steal back their pride and preserve some dignity (that was their parents). They were just…playing.

They were oblivious to the fact that a losing record should assume more losses. Their egos weren’t tied into their record and their hearts weren’t dependent on a win. They were just being kids. Playing. Having fun. And doing their thing.

And dang if that didn’t make their underdog comeback even cooler. Because while personally I wanted to be that parent who turned to the other team’s parents who were so rudely yelling in my ear the whole game and scream ‘IN YOUR FACE! WHO’S THE LOSER NOW?” the boys instead walked the line, gave high fives and said Good Game to everyone. They weren’t there trying to show anyone up or prove their own worth. They were just living and playing.

I’ve learned a lot over the years. As I’ve written my heart out and shared my soul in this space, you have responded in kind. I get message after message after message from y’all, and to a T, you say one thing: ME TOO. Even the ones who don’t seem like the underdog, the people I look at in real life and think “Dang. She’s got it all together.” She feels like the underdog in some area of her life. I promise. She does. I hear it. The messages that shock me the most, always, are from people I admire and look up to, and yes, I’m even intimidated by, who say “I thought I was the only one. I am an underdog too.”

Everyone loves an underdog. Want to know why? Because deep down inside, we’re all Underdogs too.

And here’s my thought, maybe if we all realized that fact and understood, really understood, that everyone else is walking out their own underdog battle in this life, then we could get back to being like that Bad News Bears Football team and just play for the sake of playing. Those boys won precisely because they didn’t count themselves out. They didn’t assume the loss. And damnit, they just had fun out there. 

And maybe it’s high time we start doing the same.

This recipe, though…It’s not an underdog. It’s a legit winner. Through and through. One of my sweet friends and readers asked me a few weeks ago to create some more Slow Cooker Recipes. And while I normally think of slow cooker recipes as cold weather fare, I realized that living in Texas means Barbecue is kind and, well, pulled meat of any kind is a slow cooker dream.

The idea for Fireball came when I started researching Barbecue sauces. I knew I wanted a sweet one, as my kids are NOT spicy fans at all, and there was this recurring theme of cinnamon and nutmeg popping up. So, what’s more fun than Fireball to replace both? I don’t know either. So I did. Now the thing about using booze in a sauce is slow cooker is that it won’t cook out like it does on the stovetop. There’s some scientific reason for this that I’m not smart enough to figure out so here’s the deal, if you don’t want to get your family drunk, you’ve got to cook the sauce first. I know, extra work. But here’s the deal, you put it all on the stove top, turn it to low, stir it a few times, and you’ve got a sauce. It’s not a lot of work.

The bonus is you get extra too. Don’t feel limited to using this on just chicken. It would be great on Ribs, Pork, whatever really. I love the sweetness of it but if you want an extra kick of heat (like Jeff did) add a dash of hot sauce or up the cayenne to 1/2 teaspoon. Either way, it’s delicious. Serve it on buns topped with some quick slaw (HERE’s a great recipe for one) and prepare yourself to be the hero of your next Barbecue or Cookout. 

Peace, love and Underdogs,

Meg

Slow Cooker Fireball Chicken

October 18, 2019

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By: Meaghan Dawson

Ingredients

• For the Sauce:
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 14.5 ounce jar tomato sauce
• 1 6 ounce jar tomato paste
• 1/4 cup coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
• 1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 3 tablespoons Fireball cinnamon whiskey (for more sweetness and cinnamon flavor, can go up to 4-5)
• 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• For the chicken:
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 onion, halved and thinly sliced
• Slider Sized Pretzel Buns

Directions

• Step 1 Combine all ingredients for sauce in a medium pan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
• Step 2 Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring often, for about an hour. Sauce will reduce slightly and thicken.
• Step 3 Taste and season accordingly (more hot sauce, more Fireball, etc)
• Step 4 For the chicken:
• Step 5 Place chicken and onions in bottom of slow cooker. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
• Step 6 Pour 1 1/2 cups sauce over top, stir slightly to combine.
• Step 7 Cook on high 4 hours or low 8.
• Step 8 Serve as sliders on buns topped with pickles or cole slaw. Use extra sauce for dipping or reserve for later.

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