How to Make Roast Chicken with Fennel and Garbanzo Beans

Ingredients

• 1 medium fennel bulb, cored and cut into ¼-inch slices (1-½ cups)
• ½ cups carrots, cut into ½-inch slices
• 1 cup rinsed and drained no-salt-added garbanzo beans
• 1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 5 lb whole roasting chicken
• 1 large lemon
• 1 tsp dried thyme, crushed
• ½ tsp paprika
• 5 oz fresh spinach or chopped kale
• ½ tsp fennel seeds, crushed
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper

1. Place fennel, carrots, garbanzo beans, onion, and garlic in the bottom of an oval 6-quart slow cooker.
2. Remove giblets from the chicken cavity. Cut lemon in half. Cut half of the lemon into 3 or 4 wedges and insert into the cavity of the chicken. Starting at breast bone, slip your fingers between skin and meat to loosen skin, leaving skin attached at top. Rub thyme and paprika under the skin over the meat. Place chicken, breast side up, in the slow cooker on top of the vegetable mixture.
3. Cover and cook on high-heat setting for 3-½ to 4 hours or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center of an inside thigh muscle registers 170°F.
4. Remove chicken from the slow cooker. Set aside to cool slightly. Place the spinach in a large colander set over a large bowl. Carefully pour the vegetable mixture over the spinach in the colander; discard juices. Transfer the vegetable mixture to a serving bowl. Sprinkle with fennel seeds, salt, and pepper. Squeeze remaining lemon half onto the veggies. Stir well to combine.
5. When chicken is cool enough to handle, carefully slip skin off of chicken and discard. Serve vegetable mixture with the carved chicken.