Yummy Easy Chicken & Rice Casserole

Hi everyone! This is my first recipe here and I hope you all like it. This is one of my husband's favorite meal and it is pretty easy to do. All my seasoning is done by taste so it is add a little at a time till you get a flavor you love. (No need to worry about salmonella as by this point the meat is cooked!)

Ingredients

boneless/skinless chicken breast halves, one per person if you decide to leave them whole or 1 per two people if you wish to cube it

three to four cups of cooked rice

1 large can (family size) cream of chicken soup

1 packet of oven fry or shake n bake

Spray oil such as Pam or even Wal-Marts spray canola oil

some Lemon pepper, salt, pepper, you can add garlic powder and onion powder if you like.


Instructions

1. Start cooking your rice if you haven't prepared rice already. (You can get some really great frozen rice if you are in a real hurry - either in the frozen vegetable isle or with the frozen Asian foods) Make sure it is cooked through and heated.

2. place chicken breast into a microwave safe dish and cover with plastic wrap. Cook until juices run clear or it is no longer pink inside.

3. if you are cubing or shredding the meat - let it cool to the touch and cube or shred it.

4. Heat oven to 350f

5. spray a large baking dish or pan with the spray oil so the clean up is easier. (I have a very large corning ware baking dish I use)

6 add warm rice, if you use cubed shredded chicken add that now, the full can of cream of chicken soup and mix all together with your preferred seasonings.

if you are using full chicken breasts put rice, most of the can of soup mix with your preferred seasonings then lay the chicken breast on top and cover with the rest of the soup

7. sprinkle the top with your package of oven fry or shake n bake.

8. cook for about 15 minutes in the oven until the top browns and the middle is hot.



you can even try adding other ingredients like broccoli or cheese.

I hope you like it!

I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Poblano Peppers

     But, alas, none are as big as your head.  I love to make chili rellenos.  However, it takes fairly large sized poblanos, since I like meat and cheese stuffed in mine (and I hate them dipped in egg batter-gross).  The grocery store only had smallish peppers, but I decided to adapt.
     So, put about 2 pounds of poblanos on a baking sheet and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes (10 minutes per side).  They should be blistered and soft, like so:

     Yummy.  Now, cut them in half lengthwise, and remove stem, seeds, and membrane.  Be very careful, y'all.  The seeds are very spicy hot.  Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly when you are finished.  Otherwise, if you touch your eye, it's going to hurt.  I know whereof I speak! 
     While roasting your peppers, you can brown your ground beef.  I used 3 pounds, but that was because I needed to have some meat for the kids' tacos--they wouldn't touch this casserole with a ten foot fork.  Drain the fat and add your favorite taco seasonings.  I personally prefer Walmart's Great Value brand, because it is the only taco seasoning mix I've found that doesn't contain MSG.  Of course, you could just do it the non-lazy way and add your own seasonings (I prefer chili powder, garlic, diced sauteed onions and onion powder, and crushed red pepper). 
  Now, in a rectangular casserole dish, layer lasagna style: just enough meat to cover the bottom, 1/2 the pepper slices, more meat, one can of pinto beans (puree them like me, or leave them whole--either way is fine) or refried beans (beware of the added fat), cheese, the rest of the pepper slices, meat, more cheese and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. 

     I topped it with some guacamole and fresh salsa.  If you love salsa but--like me--don't make your own, please do yourself a favor.  Don't buy salsa off the shelf.  Get fresh salsa in the produce section.  It tastes a bajillion times better!  Yummy!

Sweet Corn--Try This!

This will be short and sweet (like corn on the cob--well, the sweet part, not the short part.  Am I making this entry needlessly longer?  Perhaps).  This is a great time of the year to buy some fresh corn on the cob.  Walmart had it for 24 cents per ear Monday, but yesterday I noticed it was 33 cents.  Luckily, I bought some Monday.  And, oh well--I'm sorry if you didn't.

I usually peel the husks off of my corn at the store so I have less work to do at home.  A couple of weeks ago, some random lady in the produce aisle told me I should stop husking the corn and try cooking the corn in it's husk by popping it in the microwave for 3 and 1/2 minutes.  I thanked her, but it was impossible to re-husk my corn (no, I didn't attempt it).  So, I went on my merry way and cooked my corn on the cob on the stovetop.

On Monday's grocery trip, I decided not to husk the corn so I could try the lady's suggestion.  Last night I didn't feel like cooking a big dinner, so I picked up a rotisserie chicken and some potato salad.  Jacob wanted corn on the cob, so I let him know I'd already bought some and I'd make it tonight.  I popped each ear in the microwave for 3 minutes, 30 seconds and the corn turned out perfect!  The corn was perfectly cooked, moist, and very sweet.  Be careful peeling off the husks, though--there's lots of steam in there. 

So, thank you random lady in the produce aisle at Walmart.

Lazy Summer Dinner

I'm still in my lazy summer slump. I just don't feel like cooking this week. My go-to lazy dinner is soup. Do you remember that commercial for Rice Krispies' Treats where the mom would shut herself in the kitchen and cover herself with flour, splash water on her forehead to make her sweaty and act like she was working oh, so hard on those treats? I've managed to convince my family that creating soup is unbelievably hard, demanding work and I am a martyr who sacrifices so much to cook for them.

But, truthfully--soup is so easy. I set ground beef out to thaw, but just couldn't decide what to make with it all day. Finally, around five, I decided to make soup, and started bread in the bread machine. I pulled some celery and carrots out of the crisper, but they were starting to liquefy--gross. My frozen vegetables were pretty much broccoli and Brussels sprouts. I don't want to throw either of those into a vegetable soup. Basically, I had a Vidalia onion, canned crushed tomatoes, some left-over collard greens and canned beans, ground beef, and beef bouillon, so I made minestrone soup. I threw in some oregano, garlic, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. So easy, so yummy--and, it looks like a lot of work:

Just in case...

...anyone was planning to call child services, I didn't really neglect to feed my family ;).

And just in case you wanted a recipe...

I'm lazy and all, but I will throw you a link to an old post from my other blog with a great turkey cabbage roll recipe from back before I wanted to do a food blog:
http://babsieg.blogspot.com/2009/04/food-and-stuff.html

Whoops!

Wow, so I was so excited to start a cooking blog. I guess I didn't realize that I need to actually create posts that describe what I'm cooking instead of expecting people to just know. D'oh.

I'm really going to try harder. I promise. Maybe. I made some really good sugar-free pulled pork barbecue this weekend. I really should have taken some pictures and posted the recipes. Diet Dr. Pepper was involved.

I'm not really about cooking tonight. I'm more about laying in bed and finding things on the internet to distract me from the fact that I really should clean the house and cook for my kids. I made pizza for a really late lunch though, so I'm still flying high on the awesome mommy vibe from that. And, they can always just eat the leftovers.

My old broken-down bread machine magically started working again this weekend, so I'll be creating some bread-related adventures in the upcoming days or weeks. I made sandwich rolls for the pulled pork that were really yummy. The day before, I just made a simple white bread recipe to test the machine, and we ate the entire loaf in under 30 minutes. Clearly, I need a second bread machine. That way, we can eat two loaves of bread in under 1 hour. Maybe my idea of saving money by baking our own bread isn't really going to pan out (Get it? "Pan out" like the bread pan? Get it?). Anyway, I'm ready for some more challenging bread recipes now.

So, talk to me. What are you finding yourself making/longing to make in these waxing days of summer? Recipes with fresh berries? Sweet summer corn on the cob? Are you cooking on the grill more lately? Share!