Mom's Simple One Dish Meal

It seems like Russ and I have had a non-stop schedule lately, so we wanted a meal for tonight that would allow us lots of time to relax and catch up on laundry instead of spending most of our time cooking and cleaning up the kitchen. We also wanted something that would have enough for leftovers for tomorrow night since we are going to Thirsty Thursday (yes, dollar beer night at the Baron's), but want to eat at home beforehand. I did some thinking and thought of one of my Mother's recipes that I used to make a lot in grad school when I had little time for cooking, but have not made it since. It is her Italian Chicken and Rice.

This dish is super simple to put together and almost all of the ingredients are ones that I already have on hand. You add the water, rice, tomatoes, seasonings, onion, and mozzarella cheese to a casserole dish and mix it all up. You then place the chicken breasts on top of the rice mixture. Lastly, you add the cheese and seasoning mixture to the top and bake it. What makes this super simple is that the rice and chicken go in uncooked. You basically just dump and layer the ingredients and then bake it. If need be you can put it all together earlier in the day and then bake it later on.

As I mentioned before Russ hasn't had this dish before and he really liked it. He loves comfort food and this definitely falls in that category. The rice and chicken are moist from the water and juice from the tomatoes and the cheese and Italian seasonings give it good flavor. This is a great meal for anyone who is does not enjoy spending time cooking, is new to cooking, doesn't have much time on their hands, or just likes comfort food. It is a very hearty meal, so I served it with just steamed broccoli. Russ rates the meal a 8.

Italian Chicken and Rice (Mom's Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of water
1 cup long grain white rice (uncooked)
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup (2 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese
1 ½ teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 can chopped tomatoes with garlic and herbs, undrained

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (uncooked)

½ teaspoon garlic powder
1 ½ teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
½ cup mozzarella cheese
½ cup parmesan cheese (shredded)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine water through canned tomatoes in a 2 quart casserole dish coated with cooking spray.
Arrange chicken on top and push down into the rice mixture.
Sprinkle the top with garlic powder, Italian seasoning, parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese.
Cover and bake at 375 for 45 minutes.
Uncover and cook for 15 more minutes or until chicken is cooked through and the cheese on top is a little brown.