Apricot & Peach Chicken with Pineapple-Mango Salsa and Cilantro Lime Rice

My favorite meat, hands down, is chicken!  So I am bit embarrassed to admit how few ways I actually prepare my chicken!  I generally bake it with a little olive oil and some pre-made garlic seasoning blend.  Occasionally, I will roast a whole chicken seasoned with black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.  I do have a variety of ways I use the LEFTOVERS from both these cooking methods, but I really need to start experimenting more with the initial chicken dish!!

I have a tendency to stockpile food in my basement when I find a good sale.  I call it my bomb shelter!  I'm not quite ready to sign up for an episode of Hoarders just yet, but I do admittedly have more down there than I need.  In case of an emergency, those who live close enough should consider setting up camp over here.  If you bring the bottled water (which for the record I have none of) I will have plenty of canned goods to go around!  A few months ago they had a sale on canned fruit so, like a paranoid doomsdayer, I loaded up my shopping cart.  When I got home, to my horror, I found a can of apricots that I had mistaken for peaches!!  Eeeek!  What was I going to do with this?!?  Panic started to set in and I seriously considered returning it, but then decided against this because it just seemed silly since I only paid like $.75 for it in the first place.  So I put it in the very back row of the shelf behind all the other fruit....and there it sat....and sat....and sat.  As the weeks went by, my kids slowly be surely depleted my stock of canned fruit until the apricots were rediscovered last weekend.  So, I concluded the time had finally come to find SOME way to use this lonely can of apricots.  I decided what better use than on the chicken...then not only would I be freeing them from a sad life on my basement food shelf, but also meet my desire to be more adventurous with my chicken preparation. 

For Sunday night's dinner I decided to puree the apricots and throw everything together in the crockpot.  As I was turning to leave and head back upstairs I eyed my supply of home canned goods from this past fall and decided that for some added sweetness I would throw in a small jar of peach jelly...the end results hopefully being some kind of an apricot glaze.

I'm not really sure what happened, but even after cooking for a whole day on the low setting in the crockpot, the chicken was a little on the dry side.  I have cooked chicken breast in the crockpot before with great results...usually so tender it falls apart with a fork.  Maybe it was the chicken??  I was happy with the "glaze" though...it was thick and sweet with a slight tartness courtesy of the apricots.  I might try it again on a whole pork roast.  The chicken did make pretty good leftovers as a topping for my spinach salad I ate on Wednesday, as well as inside a quesadilla I made for lunch yesterday afternoon.

I served it with cilantro lime rice which I was very happy with!  My husband commented that it tasted a lot like Chipotle's rice so I'm going to make some again for a filler the next time I make burritos.  Now if I can only figure out how to recreate their beans!!  My kids weren't huge fans of the rice though...oh well.  At least I talked them into trying one bite!

My absolute favorite part of dinner was the pineapple-mango salsa I threw together.  I used to be one of those people who thought salsa HAD to be made with tomatoes.  A few years ago, while we were on vacation we came across an Amish community that provided tours of their homes, both historic and more "modern".  They were also selling their various homemade baked goods, breads and other yummy treats.  I spotted some peach salsa they had set out to sample and fell in love with it from the first taste.  If you've never tried salsa made with fruit, you really need to give it a try.  I found a recipe online for a fresh pineapple salsa, but made quite a few changes to the original.  The addition of a can of black beans transformed it from a condiment to a nice side dish that complemented the sweetness of the chicken "glaze".  The added bonus was that there was a whole bunch leftover so I have been happily snacking on the remaining portion with tortilla chips this entire week!

Apricot & Peach Chicken

1 can chicken broth

1 small can apricots, drained

1 small jar peach preserves

1 small onion, diced

1 tsp minced garlic

1 - 2 lbs. chicken breast

Most of the ingredients.

In a mini food processor or blender, puree the apricots.

Add all ingredients to a crockpot and mix well.

I just threw my chicken breasts in frozen.

Place chicken in crockpot.

Cook over low setting for 8 hours.  Easy enough!

Pineapple Mango Salsa

1 c diced pineapple chunks (I used the canned kind and reserved the juice)
1 c diced mango
1/2 c diced red pepper
1/2 c diced green pepper
1/2 c diced onion
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 c frozen corn, defrosted
1/4 c chopped cilantro
1/3 c pineapple juice
1 tsp cumin (I love cumin so you might to start with 1/2 tsp and increase to taste)
Salt & pepper, to taste

Mix together pineapple, mango, red pepper, green pepper, onion and jalapeno pepper. 

Add black beans and corn.

Chopped cilantro.

Cumin, salt and pepper.

Add pineapple juice, cilantro, cumin, salt and pepper.  Mix well and chill until ready to serve.

Cilantro Lime Rice (The best part about this rice is you can easily adjust the amounts of lime zest and lime juice depending how much lime flavor you want!!)

2 c water

1 tbsp butter

1 c long grain white rice

1/2 - 1 tsp lime zest

1 - 2 tbsp fresh lime juice

1/2 c chopped cilantro

Salt to taste



Bring water to boil in a medium sized saucepan.  Add butter until melted.

Add 1 c rice to boiling water.  Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer 20 mins.

Meanwhile, zest and juice the lime.  Set aside until rice is cooked.  I REALLY need to get one of those micro planers!!  The box grater isn't really meant to zest fruit...and it's really hard to clean!!

Chop the cilantro...you can make it as fine or coarse as you like.  I like slightly larger pieces of cilantro in my rice.

Once rice is cooked, fluff it with a fork.  Add the lime zest, lime juice, cilantro and salt.  Mix well and serve immediately.

Apricot & Peach Chicken, Pineapple-Mango Salsa and Cilantro Lime Rice.

Not just your regular white rice!!  YUM!

Apricot & Peach Chicken with Pineapple-Mango Salsa.  A nice pairing!