Sometimes, there is just not enough time in the day to get everything done.

This week, my brain was all over the place, and I barely had a spare minute to myself. I was rushing from the newsroom to home and back again, trying to keep up with work and family life at the same time.

By the time I made it to Saturday, I looked around and realized my house was a complete disaster. There were piles of dishes to do, mountains of clothes to be folded, bathrooms to clean and old newspapers on every surface (a hazard of the trade).

Frankly, there was not enough time to get everything done and to cook before I went back to work on Monday. But instead of dealing with that fact directly, I decided to call my mother to complain.

“Mom, how did you manage it?” I asked. “You had all these kids destroying your house, and I can barely keep up with just me and my husband’s mess.”

My mother laughed, very graciously and sympathetically, and then proceeded to explain she wasn’t always “managing” the mess when I was growing up. There were plenty of times she got overwhelmed and didn’t have time to cook, too.

But her saving grace was her Crock-pot.

“Remember how sometimes, we would end up eating a roast for the week when you were little?” she said. “It was usually because I didn’t have time to cook. Fill up your Crock-pot, and you’ll stay full for the rest of the week.”

Using a slow cooker to prepare meals was not a new concept to me. I’ve used a Crock-pot plenty of times since marrying Hunter. But for some reason, I really needed my mother to remind me that sometimes, you just need to slow down a little and simplify things.

After I got off the phone with her, I pulled out a tried-and-true Rochester Crock-pot classic, a Slow Cooker Sweet and Spicy Chicken recipe, and I got to work.

For the sake of transparency, this recipe was adapted from a recipe by Kristen McCaffrey of Slender Kitchen, but I have slowly tweaked it over the past two or three years to get it exactly how my husband and I like it.

The recipe took about 10 minutes to throw together and four hours to cook. I served it on top of jasmine rice, which only takes another minute or two to prepare, since I just set up my rice cooker next to the crockpot.

I also typically throw a vegetable, like broccoli or snap peas, on top of the chicken in the last thirty minutes of cooking, to have a perfect steamed side with the chicken. But this time, I was wading through laundry rather than chopping vegetables. Instead, I served it with microwave-steamed edamame, which only took about five minutes to heat once everything else was ready.

Overall, this recipe was incredibly low-effort, but was absolutely wonderful to smell for four hours. And it felt even better to eat it, once all the cleaning was done. And yes, everything did get done, though it took the help of my mother, my crockpot and maybe a miracle.

SLOW COOKER SHREDDED SWEET AND SPICY CHICKEN

Ingredients
2 pounds bone-in skinless chicken thighs
1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce (GF if needed)
3/8 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Asian chili garlic sauce
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried ginger, minced
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch (if needed)

Directions
■ Stir together the soy sauce, brown sugar, chili garlic paste, garlic, and ginger in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add the chicken and flip 2-3 times to coat the chicken thoroughly.
■ Cook on low for 4 hours or until chicken is fully cooked. Remove the chicken from the liquid.
■ Add the liquid from the slow cooker into a small saucepan. Bring liquid to a boil and boil for 8-10 minutes until it reduces by half and thickens (add half a teaspoon of cornstarch, if needed).
■ Shred chicken using two forks and remove the bones. Toss chicken in this sauce or drizzle on top.