Cranberry Chicken

It was very cold and snowy yesterday so I decided to channel 1950s-era cooking and try out a recipe I found on the Kraft website. This type of cooking is often referred to as “dump cooking” and the recipes as “dump recipes.” These recipes are easy and require almost no measuring. They are perfect for those busy weeknights.

The cranberry relish is not leftover from Thanksgiving. I made another batch on Saturday, using the remaining cranberries that served as frogs for my floral arrangement.

I made a few minor changes to the original recipe. Instead of breasts, I decided on drumsticks. Instead of canned cranberry sauce, I used homemade cranberry relish. I also decided to pan-sear the drumsticks before baking them with the sauce. Many people just dump everything into a slow cooker and press the button.

3 pounds chicken drumsticks
salt
pepper
2 cups cranberry relish (or 1 can cranberry sauce)
½ bottle Kraft Catalina dressing
½ package onion soup mix

1. Mix together relish, dressing and onion soup mix in a bowl and allow to sit. Wash chicken and pat dry. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat a cast iron skillet on medium heat. When skillet is hot, sear chicken until golden. Transfer chicken to a large baking dish. (I would have use the cast iron skillet but the chicken was too crowded. If your skillet is large enough, you can skip the transferring step.)




2. Pour sauce over chicken. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Let the chicken soak up the sauce while the oven preheats.

3. When oven is preheated, bake chicken until it reaches 165 degrees, turning chicken once or twice during cooking.

That is it. Now serve it with some canned green beans and crescent rolls.