After two weeks of bliss, we were back to a crazy schedule this week. I turned to my friend Stephanie O’Dea for some crock-pot inspiration for the week. I pretty much need two slow cooker friendly recipes a week, and all too often I seem to go back to the same ones. Hey, I can’t be blamed for wanting to stick with tried and true recipes because I would say that 4 out of 10 crock pot recipes I make are not repeaters. And yet, I keep trying, because having dinner ready when we walk in half an hour out from bedtime is priceless. It also keeps us from the drive-thru.
Anyway, this week I turned to the chicken recipes. I usually gravitate towards pork in the crock-pot because it’s a pretty forgiving meat. But this week I was in the mood for chicken. I scrolled through the recipes and a few stuck out. One is a Mediterranean Chicken that we’re having tonight, and the other was Apricot Barbecue Chicken Wings. I thought the apricot and barbecue combination sounded really good, and who doesn’t like chicken wings? My only problem with the recipe as a whole was the chicken wings. Those things have gone the way of the pork tenderloin, meaning that once upon a time they were a really affordable piece of meat. Now they are not. I can spend $3.50 on enough chicken leg quarters to feed my family two full meals. Whole chicken wings cost me $10 to feed my family one meal. Economical, it’s not. But I felt like a splurge, so chicken wings it was.
I sort of followed the recipe. I followed her recommendation to bake the chicken wings for just ten minutes before popping them in the crock-pot. I figured this gave me an opportunity to properly season the wings- so I sprinkled them liberally with salt and pepper and popped them in the oven to par-cook. While they baked up, I put together the sauce.
I poured out one cup of barbecue sauce and added my dried mustard. Then I pulled out the jar of apricot preserves. I was supposed to use the whole thing, but 18 ounces was a LOT of apricot preserves. I ended up adding just half of the jar. Then, instead of tabasco, I used a nice heaping tablespoon of my homemade hot sauce. A sauce which still needs a name, but is so incredibly delicious. This summer I’ll share how to make your own hot sauce when the hot peppers are in full explosion. For now, here’s a picture of my beautiful hot nectar:
I put the chicken wings into my crock-pot and then poured the sauce all over. I set it to low and walked away. An hour or two later, before we went out the door, I gave the wings one stir, but that probably wasn’t totally necessary. When we came home several hours later, the wings were done and we ate them with salad.
They were really good. The apricot and barbecue played together beautifully. The hot sauce and mustard were perfect additions, because they kept the sweetness in check. They weren’t too hot for the kids, though Abigail did mention her tingly lips today when she had leftovers for lunch. And speaking of leftovers, I have a recommendation for this recipe. I suggest that when you make this, you allow an extra 15 minutes of time if possible. The reason for this is that when I put the leftovers in the oven today, magic happened. That delicious sauce really baked into the wings, and then they got this great sticky quality. They were good last night, but they were spectacular today. If you have an extra 15 minutes, toss the wings in a 400ºF oven, you won’t be disappointed.
Apricot Barbecue Chicken Wings
Adapted from a recipe from A Year of Slow Cooking