Blackberry Chicken

I love looking to the world wide web for inspirations and ideas for meals, especially when I want to put ingredients together that are not typically paired together.  Our freezer is still full of berries from last summer that we would like to use up before the summer so I decided to hunt for a recipe.  I found a recipe on a great blog called The Gracious Pantry and I modified it a bit based on what I had on hand.  I am sure it is a blog I will return to for more recipe ideas!
 I served it with some roasted vegetables.

Blackberry Chicken

1 onion, sliced into rings

4 chicken breasts

1 cup frozen blackberries

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp minced rosemary

3 cloves minced garlic

1. Make a layer of onions in the bottom of the crockpot and place the chicken over top.
2. Scatter the blackberries over the chicken.
3. Whisk together the balsamic, rosemary and garlic before pouring it over the mixture in the crockpot.
4. Cook on low heat for 6 hours or high for 3.

Cranberry Orange Chicken

Life has gotten very busy in the past few months and I am making use of my crockpot more than ever.  In the new year a couple of my friends had shared a link on Facebook to 20 Freezer Meals in 4 Hours from the Stock Piling Moms website.  I was intrigued so I decided to make a bunch of them for the freezer so on my really busy days, all I have to do is pull a bag out of the freezer the night before to let it defrost and then set it in the crockpot in the morning.
I love how well cranberry and orange go together and whenever I see bags of cranberries at the grocer, I will grab a couple for the freezer to use at a later date.  I really enjoyed this recipe for Cranberry Orange Chicken and I found it went well with rice.  It is a good one to make if you have leftover cranberry sauce to use up.

Cranberry Orange Chicken

3 chicken breasts
1 cup of orange juice
1 cup of cranberry sauce
2 cups of water

1. Place the chicken, orange juice and cranberry sauce in the crockpot and then add the water. 
2.  You can set your crockpot to low and cook for 6-8 hours or set it to high and cook for 2-4 hours.

If you want to make a couple to have on hand in the freezer, put the chicken, orange juice and cranberry sauce into a freezer bag. Be sure to write the instructions on the bag to add 2 cups of water along with the cooking temperature and time.