Because of the profession that Wayne is in, he does have a “swing shift” type of job. Well, it just so happened that he was at work last night so, I had plans to fix dinner for just me and Jackson. Wayne was going to eat steak with the guys. I took out some chicken breasts because I always seem to find something to do with chicken. I do love to try new recipes – especially stuff with lots of starches. I know that they aren’t good for you, but they seem to make the best dishes, i.e., stuffing, rice, potatoes, etc. However, I usually do have to have a recipe in front of me, for the dishes to work… usually.
In conversation with a co-worker a few weeks back, she had mentioned that she makes a baked chicken dish with rice and, of course, chicken. So, I thought I would make my own rendition – keyword: thought. My ingredients: long grain rice, cream of mushroom soup (probably should have used cream of chicken because I have SOOO many more cans of that – but that topic is for another posting), and chicken. Oh, and little bit of milk. I called my mom before hand to see if I needed to add water to the rice and if I needed to cover the dish and she recommended that I cover the dish and that I could use some water, but not a lot. I did read the can paper for the cream of mushroom soup and it said that I could mix with milk or water, so I chose milk.
I pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees. Isn’t that the norm for everything? Remember, no recipe in front of me. I used my Pampered Chef square baking dish and mixed the rice and one can of cream of mushroom. Then I laid 3 chicken breasts on top of the combination then poured just a bit of milk on top of the rice… hoping it would seep in. I covered the dish with tin foil and put it in the oven for 30 minutes. Why 30 minutes you ask? Because that is how long the Shake-n-Bake packaging says that I need to cook my chicken breasts when I use that… Did I mention I do better when I have a recipe?
The timer goes off after 30 minutes and I take the dish out. (I really wish that I had pictures of this!!) I open the foil and the milk has not seeped into the rice as I had hoped… It was just as liquefied as it was when I put it on the rice. The chicken, however, did look done. In an effort to make the milk mix, I lifted the chicken breasts and stirred the milk into the rice mixture. I thought I would bake it a little longer to see if it would thicken up a bit. Ahh, then another thought… cheese… cheese would be great. I sprinkled some shredded cheddar cheese on top of the chicken and put it back in the oven (uncovered) for another 10 minutes.
After I pulled the dish out for the second time, I was really excited about tasting this new dish of mine. I cut one of the chicken breasts up for Jackson and tasted. It was pretty bland… plain chicken with cheese on top. Not sure if I was really expecting anything more. Then, I scooped out some rice to put on his plate. I tried a little bit of the left over rice on the spoon. … … … hmm… interesting. Crunchy rice. Almost so crunchy it seemed as though I was eating it from the bag. I tried some from another section of the dish. Hmm… more crunchy. So, Jackson got chicken nuggets (he would have preferred them anyway) and I had a chicken breast. Yummy. Did you catch the sarcasm?!?!
Moral of the story… probably should have mixed the milk in the rice and used a bit more than just 1/4 of a cup or so.
Second moral of the story… use a recipe!
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