One Pan Chicken and Rice

Certain recipes evoke core childhood memories. This is certainly one of them. Chicken and rice in a pan with some random veggies and pasta sauce. My mom used to make this regularly. She had no real printed recipe for it. Things just got thrown in a pan and heat was applied. Often, some of the rice would be crunchy and underdone. Other sections of the rice would be big clumps. However, it tasted good and was filling. The green olives were an odd addition, but they added a nice bit of zing to the flavor. 

Core Childhood Memory

It this gourmet? No, not at all. I use canned sauce here. I almost never used canned sauce. Everything in this recipe was about getting a meal together and on the table as quickly and easily as possible. This is comfort food, plain and simple. As always, notes are in blue.

One Pan Chicken and Rice

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts, about 2 lbs. (bone in or out, it doesn't really matter. You can even use thighs if you prefer. In any case, make sure they are skinless)
• 2 cups white rice
• 3 cups water or chicken stock
• 1 onion, cut into about 1" pieces
• 1 bell pepper, cut into about 1" pieces
• 1 can mushrooms (6.5oz), drained.
• 1/2 cup green olives
• 1 can (24 oz) pasta sauce (we used Hunt's Garlic & Herb)
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning.
• Grated parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F (190C, Gas Mark 5)
2. In a 9x13 baking dish add the rice and water/stock
3. Lay the chicken on top of the rice. 
4. Sprinkle the garlic and Italian seasoning over the chicken.
5. Distribute the vegetables around the pan. 
6. Pour the pasta sauce over the top of everything.
7. Cook uncovered for about 1 hour, or until the chicken and rice are both done. (a little bit of charring on the veggies is normal)
8. Garnish with parmesan cheese.

Everything benefits from a bit of cheese.
Good Times!

Slow Cooker Chicken and Potatoes in Pasta Sauce

 

Oh boy. Only 54 more wake ups until Summer Vacation. The Burn Out is real. Clearly based on the stellar content I've been posting (i.e. memes and various shitposting), I'm not finding much time or inclination to cook. Going without an oven for five weeks didn't help. We've leaned hard into the slow cooker. The upshot is we came up with a gem. You could eat this by itself as a stew, or over rice or pasta. It uses nothing but staple kitchen items so it won't be hard to put together (especially if you just use jarred pasta sauce) and isn't expensive. It is certainly filling and tasty. The Wife describes it as "kind of like cacciatore," which seems like a fair assessment.  Give it a try and let me know what you think. As always, notes are in blue. 

Slow Cooker Chicken and Potatoes in Pasta Sauce

Ingredients

• 4 medium potatoes, cut into 1" cubes (Peel them if you want. We generally don't)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped (Pick whatever color you like. The Wife doesn't really like green peppers, so we used red bell peppers here)
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 lb chicken (Another choice! Thighs or breasts? We went with breasts because we had more on hand and I like to save the thighs for any pressure cooking)
• 2-1/2 cups of pasta sauce. (I highly recommend this recipe for pasta sauce, but feel free to use your own, or even bust open a jar of store bought. I won't judge you.)
• 1 teaspoon dry oregano
• 1 teaspoon dry basil
• salt to taste

Directions

1. In a slow cooker (a 4-5 quart cooker will work), layer all the ingredients in order of appearance.
2. Cook on LOW for 6 hours. 
3. Shred the chicken with a fork.
4. Give everything a stir before serving.

Good Times!

Product Review: Jen's Family Table Bolognese Classic Pasta Meat Sauce

 Disclaimer: This product was provided to me by the company. However, the review is based entirely on the merit of the product. 

I received this Bolognese sauce along with some other meat chubs from Dos Rios Taco Meat and Jen's Family Table. I will admit I was a little taken aback at the concept of heat and eat meat sauce. My pasta sauce takes hours to make and is undeniably the Best Ever. Could a frozen chub compete? Would it be fair to compare them? No, it wouldn't. My sauce is made for people I know with tastes that I am familiar with. The people at Jen's Family Table are cooking for a vast number of people they have never met before. That's when I decided what I'd compare it to: The meat sauce you get at a family restaurant. You know what I'm talking about, that brownish-red meat sauce that tastes vaguely like cinnamon. This set the bar extremely low, since I absolutely hate that style of meat sauce. So with that in mind, here we go:

The Wife was in a rush to eat and had already emptied out the chub.

The packaging is simple and efficient. There is no question as to what you're getting here. Let's take a look at the back:

Nutritionally, it's not bad at all. If you ate the whole pound, you'd be out 455 calories. This is an important consideration for me, since I try to limit my intake to 1600 calories a day. Calorie-wise, this is a guilt free sauce for me. The sodium is a bit up there, but that's down to the nature of the product. I don't think it can be helped and honestly, the sauce does not taste salty at all. 

With that out of the way, let's talk ease of preparation. This is where this product truly shines. It's precooked. If it's defrosted, you're only looking at a few minutes in the microwave for a piping hot sauce. You could certainly warm it up on the stovetop as well, but we were all about speed tonight. It was literally just emptying the chub into a bowl and slapping it in the microwave for about two and a half minutes.

Now comes the important part; how does it taste? I was pleasantly surprised to find there was no cinnamon flavor at all. This was, as advertised, a "thick and meaty" sauce! You could actually taste the spices. Nothing overpowering, but there was definitely something going on. We felt that it stood on its own and did not need anything extra.  We decided to serve it over some cheese tortellini and The Wife's Eggplant Parmigiana. 

Winner, winner, chi...wait. That won't work.

This sauce held up wonderfully. It clung well to the tortellini and eggplant and did not break down during the meal. The Wife and I both agreed this is certainly a product we'd keep in the freezer for a quick midweek meal. I would definitely use it in my lasagna to cut down on prep time.