Baked Brown Rice

This recipe was shared with me by a Weight Watchers member a few years ago, and I love love LOVE it. It is healthy, super easy and I can make it once and have leftovers for the next few days. You can't beat a recipe that takes about five minutes to prepare and then cooks in the over for almost an hour and comes out like this.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups brown rice, medium or short grain
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place the rice into an 8-inch square glass baking dish. (I use a metal one.)
 
Bring the water, butter, and salt just to a boil in a kettle or covered saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. 

Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour. 

After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.

Source: Alton Brown

Chicken Taco Rice

I have a go-to Mexican recipe (Crock Pot Mexican Chicken), but I wanted to try something a little bit different, sans slow cooker. My husband and I both thought this dish was really yummy, and I thought it was super easy to make. I loved the colorful vegetables - something the crock pot dish doesn't really offer. The only bad thing? It gave me some heartburn. Other than pregnancy, not much gives me heartburn, but it must have been just the right mix of acid and spice and everything nice.

Ingredients:
1 lb. boned chicken breasts, cut in to strips
2 tbsp. oil
1 can (13 3/4 oz.) chicken broth
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1 pkg. taco seasoning mix
1 can (12 oz.) corn, drained
1 medium red or green pepper, cut in to small strips
1 1/2 cups Minute Rice
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
tortilla trips
sour cream

Directions:

Cook and stir chicken in hot oil until lightly browned. Add broth, tomato sauce and seasoning mix.

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer five minutes. Add corn and red or green pepper.

Bring to a full boil. Stir in rice. Cover; remove from heat. Let stand 5 minutes. Fluff with fork.

Serve with cheese, tortilla chips and sour cream, if desired.

Crock Pot Mexican Chicken

As Meg mentioned in an earlier post, we're going to expand the focus of the blog a bit. I made this super easy dinner last week and wanted to share it because it is a) simple, b) cheap, c) healthy and d) delish.

I'm not a great cook. I don't particularly enjoy cooking - I'm much more of a baker. But I realize that I can't live off frozen meals forever, and there will be times when it will be nice to have some good go-to recipes for dinner.

I was on Weight Watchers in the months before my wedding, and I've adopted many of the principles in to my every day eating. I had searched for Weight Watcher friendly recipes that were easy and didn't SOUND like Weight Watcher recipes, and this was one of them. Conveniently, it also sounded like something that Tim would like.

And even though he asked that I buy Chipotle for him to eat in the event that he didn't like MY cooking, he finally admitted that it was good and he would enjoy having it again. And since it was so easy, I have enjoyed making it again and again and again.


Ingredients:

1 package frozen skinless chicken breasts (about four breasts)

1 jar corn & black bean salsa

Directions:

Dump into crock pot (chicken must be frozen). Cook all day on low.

Before you're ready to serve your meal (it was about 7 hours later for us), shred chicken and let cook another 10 minutes or so.

Serve in corn tortillas for tacos or in an egg roll wrap or over rice.

Optional: Top with shredded cheese