Back to school and after school practices and meetings.  The last six weeks of school is going to be crazy.  My daughter is adding another day of dance in Kalamazoo, MI which means another hour drive each way.  I love that we can do this but three-four days a week in the evenings are tough.  I will do this through the end of the school year and then we are cutting back a bit for the summer.  She will continue to dance but we can at least do it during the day so it doesn’t quite interrupt the rest of our lives so much.

She is thinking about being homeschooled again next year and I fully understand.  She loves her friends and school but hates the amount of homework she has and how it impacts all the other things she wants to do.  She usually does homework in the car on the way to dance class then when we get home she still has usually at least 1-2 more hours of it.  Being homeschooled would allow her to dance during the day too so that she could still have a social life in the evenings.   Time will tell….

So, another To-Go dinner.  This fit perfectly in our divided dishes.  We had the chicken and stuffing in one side and the fresh green beans on the other.  I wish I had thought to pack a green salad but they each had a piece of fruit with them so I felt a bit better.

This is not a great looking picture for a dish that really was very good.  It warmed up recently into the 60s but plunged right back down again into the 30s with snow predicted for this evening so I decided a comforting slow cooker meal was needed to sooth our disappointment over the returning snow.  Though we know the snow will be short lived it is hard to deal with after having that brief taste of Spring.

My daughter loves stuffing and this seemed like an easy dish to experiment with.  The original recipe I found for Crockpot Chicken and Stuffing from I Save A2Z.com contained 2 cans of cream of chicken soup.  I made a quick batch of thickener to avoid using the canned soup and made fresh green beans on the side because that is what I had on hand.

Verdict:

It was a hit.  This was a warm comforting dish on a cold, cold night.   The kids loved that the stuffing was moist but also had a bit of “crunch” around the edges.

I liked that is was fairly simple to make and it really did not need the canned soup mix to make it flavorful.

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breasts (defrosted)
• 2 boxes of Stuffing mix
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup low sodium chicken broth (tip:  use low sodium as the stuffing mixes are VERY salty!)
• 1 cup fat-free half and half
• pepper to taste
• about 1 cup of water

Directions:

1. Spray the bowl of the slow cooker with non stick cooking spray
2. Place the chicken breasts in the bottom of the bowl.
3. Next open two boxes of stuffing mix and pour the dry mix over the raw chicken.
4. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in flour; keep stirring until smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat and add the chicken broth and milk, a little at a time, stirring to keep smooth. Return saucepan to heat. Bring sauce to a gentle boil; cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens. Taste and add black pepper, as needed to taste.  Do not add salt!  The stuffing mixes are very salty and this will be far too salty if you add salt!
5. Let mixture in saucepan cool slightly then add sour cream.  Mix well.  Pour this mixture over the dry stuffing mix.
6. Now add about 1 cup of water to the top of this mix.  If you like moist stuffing add slightly more than 1 cup if you like it a bit drier add slightly less than one cup.
7. Cook on low for about 7 to 8 hours.
8. Tip: About ½ way between the cooking time use a fork to fluff the stuffing mix.