Snowpocalypse Part Deux

I mentioned in my previous post that I've spent the snowstorm cooking - now that I'm feeling better and can eat food, I decided it was time I learned how to cook. I've actually been doing a lot of it in the last few weeks, but so as not to overwhelm you with recipes, I'll post maybe one or two a day.

Since I was just talking about it with Kelly, here's my Pecan-Apricot Chicken, the first thing I made, while my parents were visiting, post-hospital. It was sort of an amalgamation of two different recipes. It turned out really well, and my parents seemed to like it (or at least they pretended to). I'd definitely make it again, and my mom, who is notorious in our family for her endless supply of chicken recipes, said she'd be adding it to her repertoire. I kind of didn't measure anything, since I was mostly just winging it once I got passed the concept stage, but here's what I did, if you want to try it at home:

I used thin chicken cutlets, but you could use whole boneless, skinless chicken breasts if you wanted. Place them in a baking dish and season with salt and pepper. Spoon apricot preserves on top of each piece. Make the pecan topping by smashing up the pecans (I used the "put them in a plastic bag and pound them with something heavy" technique) and then mixing them with bread crumbs. Add just enough melted butter to moisten the mixture so that it sticks together. Spoon on top of the preserves, and then sprinkle with parsley. Bake at 375 degrees; cooking time depends on the thickness of the chicken. My chicken was very thin, so it only took half an hour. I served the chicken with roasted potatoes and a tossed salad.