Apricot Stuffing and Chicken

Time to dig out the old crockpot again.  I've mentioned in a couple of previous posts that I'm looking for easier recipes now that I'm getting ridiculously pregnant and don't want to spend as much time in the kitchen and generally the slow cooker heeds the call.  And where I'm not a giant fan of "cream of dinner", I was kind of excited to try this recipe out as it calls for four...count 'em...four ingredients, none of them being a cream of something soup.  I found this dish from Fix-It and Forget-It, Our Best Slow Cooker Recipes 2010.

Apricot Stuffing and Chicken

6-oz pkg. cornbread stuffing mix
1/2 cup butter, divided
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
6- to 8-oz jar apricot preserves

1.  In a mixing bowl, make stuffing using 4 tbsp butter and amount of water called for in package instructions.

2.  Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces.  Place in bottom of slow cooker.  Spoon stuffing over top.

3.  In microwave or on stovetop, melt remaining 4 tbsp butter with preserves.  Pour over stuffing.

4.  Cover and cook on high 3 hours or cook on high 1 hour and then on low 2 hours or until chicken is tender.

The Verdict:  I think my cat could make this recipe it's so easy, but it's so good you'd never believe it was so stupidly simple.

There's a recipe that I recently posted for creamy chicken and stuffing casserole that's very similar.  It's a bit of an old standby, but I do believe it's been pushed out of the roster by this new recipe.  The combination of cornbread stuffing, sweet apricot preserves, and tender chicken is just awesome.  Just sweet enough without rendering the chicken a sugary mess.  Perfect.

I did run into a conundrum while making the stuffing.  The recipe tells you to make the stuffing as directed on the package, and the package that I used (Pepperidge Farms) called for an additional two ingredients: diced onion and chopped celery.  Zut alors.  This means that my four ingredient recipe would then become a 6 ingredient recipe.  And is that what they meant by following the package directions?  It's rather weird that I'm sometimes so literal as I consider myself to be pretty creative.  So as usual, I suggest you do whatever you want to do.  I added the onions and celery and am very happy that I did.  The stuffing was "let's have seconds" good.

Yes, that's a good way to put it.  Let's have seconds.  In fact, let's make two more crockpots of this concoction and have have thirds.