Baked and Breaded Apricot Chicken Recipe

It's cold out. It's going to snow. You're only going to the grocery store once this week to avoid having to shovel your car out more than once. Sound familiar? Or has that become only my life during this Boston winter? Time to start planning a menu for this week and this delicious recipe should definitely be on it. 

What You Need: 

6-8 Boneless Chicken Breasts (not pictured because you all know what chicken looks like)

1 10 oz Jar of Apricot Preserves

1 cup Bread Crumbs

1/4 cup Lemon Juice

2 tsp Soy Sauce

1/4 cup Margarine

1/2 tsp Salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Prepare the chicken by trimming the fat and rinsing it under cold water.

3. In a shallow dish, combine the apricot preserves, lemon juice, soy sauce and salt and thoroughly stir the ingredients together.

4. Dip each chicken breast into the preserve mixture making sure to fully coat each piece. This is what you will use to bind the breadcrumbs to the chicken.

5. After each piece is coated in the preserves, roll the chicken in a bowl of breadcrumbs so the chicken is covered. Set aside any extra preserves mixture.

6. Arrange the chicken in a pyrex dish  (greased) and drizzle the melted margarine along the top to help the chicken crisp up as it cooks. Bake uncovered in the over for 50-60 minutes (or until tender). Heat the remaining preserves and serve with the chicken. 

Remove from the oven once the chicken is thoroughly cooked and enjoy for dinner. It's easy to cut the recipe in half but I recommend keeping the sauce part the same if you like extra sauce. The dish goes great with rice and a vegetable since there's enough of the preserves to use as sauce for your sides!

Recipe: Chicken Fajitas & Guacamole

Whenever I can't decide what to make for dinner, my go to is always Mexican food. For me, it's simple and difficult to screw up. One of my favorites is chicken fajitas. I've made it with a few different types of seasoning so below is just the one that I remembered to take pictures of.

What you will need for the fajitas (keep in mind I'm cooking for one): 

1 tbsp of olive oil

1/2 of an onion

1/2 of an orange pepper and 1/2 of a yellow pepper (I prefer these over red and green peppers)

2 chicken breast tenderloins

1/3 of a package of Ortega fajita or taco seasoning

2 iceberg lettuce leaves

First, rinse the onion & peppers and slice into thin strips. Rinse the chicken too, and trim any fatty bits. I tend to thoroughly pick apart chicken since it's not very appealing raw.

Next, saute the onion & peppers in a skillet with a tbsp of olive oil. These will take longer to cook than the thin chicken so make sure to cook them for a few minutes before adding in the chicken. Cook the chicken for about 4 minutes on each side and pull apart once it's cooked through. The onions should be translucent & the chicken no longer pink!

Add in about 1/3 of the seasoning packet along with some warm water. Stir everything together so the veggies and chicken are coated in seasoning. Heat through.

While the chicken and veggies are cooking for the last minute, wash two lettuce leaves to use as the "shell." And since I love avocados...guacamole is an absolute must. Cut an avocado in half and scoop it into the bowl sans the pit. Add in a tbsp of sour cream and a tbsp or two of salsa and mix together.

Scoop the chicken, onions and ppers into the lettuce shells, top with guacamole and cheese and enjoy! Let me know what you think!