Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs with Sausage and Artichokes

I've been on a cooking hiatus - the holidays have made my weekends more crazy, and then I got a bad cold which has made me even less motivated to cook. But today I decided to break in the awesome slow cooker I received for Christmas. Boyfriend's family also gave me a couple of great slow cooker cookbooks, and this dinner was inspired by Saucy Italian Chicken Thighs from the Cooking Light Slow Cooker cookbook. I modified the recipe only slightly, adding sausage (which I knew would be a winner with Boyfriend) and artichokes (for me).

The Ingredients:

3 lbs chicken thighs (skin removed)
2 skinless chicken sausages (I used Fire Roasted Red Pepper flavor)
1 small onion, medium diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 9oz box frozen artichoke hearts
1 500g box chopped tomatoes
1 6oz can tomato paste
1 tsp Italian Seasoning

The Directions:

1. Place chicken thighs in bottom of 4 quart slow cooker.
2. Slice 2 chicken sausages into bite-sized pieces, and layer over chicken thighs.
3. Cover with diced onion, minced garlic, box of artichoke hearts, chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, and Italian seasoning. (After about an hour of cooking, I realized that the original recipe recommends combining all of these ingredients and then topping the chicken. I didn't do that, just dumped each ingredient in one on top of another, and it turned out just fine.)
4. Cook on High setting for 1 hour, then cook on Low for 5-6 hours, until chicken is fully cooked and tender.

This was super easy. I picked it because it had very little prep, just dump stuff in the slow cooker and turn it on. After a few hours, the apartment smelled great! I served it over some "instant" brown rice that I cooked in chicken stock. It was a huge hit! The chicken was incredibly tender and fell right off the bone. The chicken also gave off a lot of juices, which combined with the tomatoes to make everything very saucy. I think the addition of sausage and artichokes really boosted the flavor of the dish, and worked with the chicken. I plan to reheat the leftovers tomorrow for lunch and serve over spinach pasta. This is definitely a keeper, although in the future, I might add some dark greens, like kale or spinach, for the last hour of cooking.