Simple Supper Friday: Slow Cooker Apricot Chicken
Slow cooker apricot chicken, served atop mashed butternut squash.
Wow, what an exhausting, but good week! I am whooped and so glad that it’s Friday. I admit, I haven’t done the greatest with my sleep this week and part of it is due to poor planning. Sure, I had an extra busy week, but most of this falls back on me. I gladly take the blame. Yesterday was especially brutal on the tiredness scale, and I even took a cat-nap before going to work in the evening. I opted to get better sleep last night, put my computer away and got to bed at my preferred time. I’ve got to get myself back on track because things are only going to get more hectic!
Anyway, pull out your slow cooker for this one! With some simple prep and steps, you can have this in your slow cooker in no time, but remember to plan ahead for the cooking time.
Slow cookers really are my saving grace. Plus, I can’t get enough shredded meat. It’s my favorite.
Ingredients:
- 1.5 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts (or thighs)
- 2 tsp coconut oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2-inch piece ginger, grated
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp allspice
- Sea salt and pepper to taste
- 1 14.5 oz can no salt added diced tomatoes
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 3/4 cup unsweetened, unsulphered dried apricots, halved
Directions:
- Melt the 1 tsp of the coconut oil in a pan over medium heat. Season the chicken with sea salt and pepper, and add to the pan. Brown on both sides for a couple minutes. Then, remove from heat and set aside.
- In the same pan, melt the remaining 1 tsp of coconut oil. Add more if needed. Add the onion and saute a few minutes, until it becomes translucent. Stir in the ginger, garlic, cinnamon and allspice. Cook and stir for 30 seconds, or until fragrant.
- Add the tomatoes and chicken broth. Cook a few minutes longer, until heated through. Pour mixture into slow cooker and add the dried halved apricots. Place chicken on top of the mixture and cover.
- Cook on low for 5-6 hours or on high for 3-4.
- When done, shred the chicken with two forks and mix together.
- Serve atop vegetable of choice (kale, squash, etc.). I used mashed butternut squash.
Yields: 4-5 servings
My sister bought me a couple of these beautiful plates for Christmas. The plates are Gmundner Keramik, ceramic handmade plates from the city of Gmunden in Austria. She said this company is known all throughout Europe, but naturally, the most popular in Austria. She also said this is probably the most famous design. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Thanks again, Amanda!
Simple Supper Friday: Creamy Tomato Soup and Breakfast Sandwiches
Creamy tomato soup with a homemade breakfast sandwich.
The flavor of this soup instantly took me back to childhood. Growing up, I ate a lot of macaroni and tomato soup, made with Campbell’s condensed tomato soup, milk and elbow noodles. If it wasn’t macaroni and tomato, it was plain tomato soup with grilled cheese. It always tasted delicious and was definitely one of my kid comfort foods.
It’s funny, because my sisters and cousins all agreed that our Grandma Reilly’s macaroni and tomato soup tasted the best, but we didn’t know what tasted so special about it, other than the fact that it had really soft, overly-cooked noodles. Well, a few years back at a family get-together (probably Christmas or something), we told grandma that her soup always tasted better than anybody else’s and asked what her secret was. She replied, “I make it just like everybody else — a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, milk, macaroni and a little oleo,” (but it sounded she said a lil oleo).
We all laughed hysterically at the last ingredient and the fact that grandma said it as if we all knew to put oleo in the soup. You’d have to be part of my family to truly understand the humor in this. My grandma always used the word oleo for margarine and butter. I think it’s because one of the first margarine brands back in the day was actually called, Oleo. Does or did anybody else’s grandma call margarine and/or butter oleo?
I decided to make this soup on behalf of my friend Kim over at Healthy Foods to You. She posted a tomato soup and biscuit recipe the other day and the soup sounded so easy, that I decided I wanted to give it a go and add my own twist to it. Honestly, I didn’t change much, other than switching the order of things and adding a couple pats of “oleo” (grass-fed butter in this case) to the soup. I had to for my dear grandma, who passed away earlier this year. Plus, it’s butter … it makes things taste better.
Vitamix doing its thing.
I wanted to add some protein to the meal, but didn’t want to add any meat to the soup to take away from its pure flavor, so decided to make one of my breakfast sandwiches for the side. I whipped up some almond flour biscuits, fried an egg in grass-fed butter and sliced some avocado. Wham, bam breakfast sandwich made!
Fresh almond flour biscuits out of the oven. This is my go-to biscuit recipe. This time, I even used fresh ground almond flour.
Ingredients:
- 1 28 oz can organic diced tomatoes
- 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk
- 2 Tbsp grass-fed butter
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- Pepper to taste
- Chopped fresh basil for garnish, optional
Directions:
- Pour the tomatoes into a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the butter, sea salt and pepper, and stir for a few minutes.
- Once the butter is melted and the tomatoes are heated through, stir in the coconut milk. Once incorporated, pour the entire mixture into the blender and blend on high for a couple minutes or until smooth.
- Pour the soup back into the pot to stay warm. Serve with chopped basil, if using and a breakfast sandwich.
I dunked my sandwich in my soup when I ate this. It was awesome.
