#98. Try one new recipe a month for 6 months.

Recipe #1: One Dish Chicken & Rice Bake from Campbell's Kitchen

Prep Time: 5 min. - Bake Time: 45 min.
Ingredients:
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup OR 98% Fat Free Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 cup water *
3/4 cup uncooked regular long-grain white rice
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Directions:

MIX soup, water, rice, paprika and black pepper in 2-qt. shallow baking dish. Top with chicken. Season with additional paprika and pepper. Cover.

BAKE at 375°F. 45 min. or until done. Serves 4.

TiP: *For creamier rice, increase water to 1 1/3 cups. Serve with your favorite steamed vegetable blend. For dessert serve pear wedges.

For even more flavorful rice, try substituting an equal amount of chicken broth for the water.

Recently I was trying to come up with some new dishes for Troy and me to try for our dinners/lunches. We try to do grocery shopping and "freezer" cooking about once every three weeks. We make a list of meals that we like that are easy to cook and that freeze well. We compile the list of ingredients, make a grocery run for any items we are missing, then I spend about 3 - 5 hours on a Saturday afternoon cooking and packaging the meals into 1-serving containers that we put into the freezer. Then during the week it's really easy to grab a container out of the freezer and take it to work for lunch. We've found this helps us eat a lot healthier. It's also cheaper and better than the Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine frozen meals.

The only problem I've come up against is that we tend to get into a rut where the same meals are being prepared over and over again. I'm not sure if this is because we really like the meals (Turkey Manhattan) or because the same items are often on sale (chicken for chicken and noodles). Either way, I'm a bit tired of the same meals over and over again. So, I found this great website that sends me daily recipes (http://www.campbellskitchen.com). Because it's sent out by Campbell's, most of the recipes contain some sort of soup, but that makes it all the better since soup can be quite economical and good for you, really.

We were heading to Troy's family's farm for Easter and there wasn't a main dish on the menu that I would eat (I don't generally eat red meat or pork), so I decided to bring this Chicken & Rice bake. I knew I was stepping out on a limb bringing a dish I'd never made before to a gathering where others would be my guinea pigs, but it's sadly not the first time I've done it and probably won't be the last. (I shun conventional wisdom about such things.) I also modified the recipe a bit. (Campbells cooks all over the land are shrieking in horror!) I had a can of Garlic Cream of Mushroom that sounded interesting and I used brown rice instead of long grain white rice. (EGAD!)

Then general consensus: Very good! It was quick, easy and cheap. If you added a salad and veggie, this could serve a family of four quite well!

I've got 5 more recipes to try in the next 5 months, so if you have suggestions, please pass them on to me. :-)