Chicken with dressing

The holidays are barely over, but I have to confess they always leave me with a longing for more--more turkey, more gravy, more dressing. So when I saw a recipe in the newspaper recently for chicken with drssing on the outside, I was intrigued. And tonight I served it to two guests. Basically, you put dressing or stuffing--whatever you want to call it--on a cookie sheet and then bake the chicken pieces on top of it.

Here's what I did--a variation on the recipe that appeared in the newspaper:

4 chicken thighs
one apple, such as Gala or other semi-sweet variety
About 2 large stalks celery
1 Tbsp. poultry seasoning, sage, whatever you want
2 Tbsp. olive oil, divided use
Eight slices coarse white bread
One cup chicken broth
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a large, rimmed cookie sheet with oil.

Dice apple with 1/2 cup celery (rough chopped, not too fine) and mix with one tsp. poultry seasoning or sage or whatever seasoning suits your fancy.

Add about eight slices cubed bread--I used sourdough and the pieces were fairly large. At that I ended up with too much bread, so you might cut down to maybe four cups cubed bread.

Add 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Mix until olive oil is thoroughly distributed, and spread evenly on cookie sheet. Bake ten minutes.

Remove from oven. Pour one cup chicken broth evenly over the bread mixture, stirring to make sure all the bread is dampened.

Rub each piece of chicken with remaining olive oil (you may have to use a little more--I didn't measure) and place on bread mixture. Season chicken and dressing with salt and pepper as desired. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until bread is golden and chicken is cooked. Watch it carefully, as I found the bread turned golden and was done before the chicken was. But the chicken ends up with lovely crisp skin.

Pile dressing on a serving platter and top with chicken. Enjoy!