Crockpot Recipes, hit and miss

First, the HIT!
Easy Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings


Nouns:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 medium onion
3-4 ribs celery, chunked
3-4 carrots, chunked
1.5 cups chicken broth
1 can cream of celery condensed soup
2 bay leaves
sprinkle of basil
sprinkle of oregano
sprinkle of thyme

2 cups dry biscuit mix... I like buttermilk mix for this.

Verbs
Put all but the last ingredient into the crockpot and cook on low 6-8 hours.  (I actually cooked mine for over twelve hours because I forgot my keys and couldn't get into my house and my husband had to come rescue me and blah blah blah, I didn't get home until 8:30 or so, and it still turned out yummy.)  Then, turn the crock to high and mix the biscuit mix with as much water as the directions call for.  Mix into biscuit dough.  Pinch off small pieces of dough, say gumball sized, and drop them into the crock.  Cover the crock and simmer on high for about 30 minutes.  If you are impatient, you can parbake the dumplings first in a toaster oven, like I did.  Once the biscuits are done through, ladle up a big bowl full and eat.  Delicious!

The husband raved about how much he liked it.  Actually, he grunted like a happy puppy with his mouth full and mimed putting more in his bowl.  Which I interpret as a compliment.


And now, the Miss...

Crockpot Chicken Paprikash
I put this together from a variety of different recipes, and it's not great.

Nouns:
4 portions of chicken bones and skin removed... I used four thighs and a breast, but you could do all breast, or a whole cut up chicken, or whatever
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons paprika
1 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper

1 cup sour cream
Egg noodles or Spatzle

Put the first set of ingredients in the crockpot and cook on high 4 hours.  I cooked mine on low for 8, and it was too long; things got a bit too browned and sad.  Remove the paprikash from the crock and stir in the sour cream right before serving over the noodles or spatzle.

This is not great.  It's overdone and so all fell apart.  It looks like barbecue pulled chicken, but tastes like nothing much, really.  I think it would be MUCH better with a shorter cooking time and better quality paprika (ours is from the bulk spice bin at our discount grocery, and it's only so-so) but it's just not really worth tinkering with to try to get perfect.  Paprikash is not for the crockpot, as it turns out.