Winner, Winner, Italian Chicken Dinner

 My most reoccurring dilemma in this merry-go-round called life  is the dilemma of <echo>What to Cook for Dinner??? Do you hear the echoing, What to Cook for Dinner!!!!  It sounds like a deep, masculine voice echoing in my brain each and eeeeevvvvvveeeerrrrryyyy day!  

I have blogged, in the past, about how I really do love to cook, but what I love to cook is not always what my kids had in mind for the dinner!  It is not what that they had dreamed about while learning how to conjugate verbs and do long division.  As a matter of fact, upon seeing dinner come out of the oven tonight, my sweet, adorable and painfully honest son states,"Well, there goes my dream of a GOOD dinner tonight".  How dare he!!!  Doesn't he know you can't judge a book by it's cover!  

Well, my goal in writing this blog is to catalog some,everyday, go-to recipes that we have in our regular, normal, home on a regular, normal basis- think Pioneer Woman just in the city!  I also want to have a place to catalog recipes for my own personal interest-think turning 40 brain fog. I also want to use this blog as a place to hold myself accountable for cooking- think my husband is going to leave me if I tell him we have to eat out because I didn't make it to the grocery store, again:-)  I hope that I can also help you with some new dinner ideas or new twists on old favorites.  I won't even go into my gluten free test diet in this post

but I will in my next......so here is dinner #1.  Like I said earlier, we had this tonight and we have it about once a month.  It is an extremely easy, quick healthy meal that you can throw together in about an hour.

The grocery list:

5-6 Boneless/skinless Chicken Breast

1 carton cherry tomatoes

1 cup brown rice

1 bunch of Asparagus

Sea Salt

Olive Oil

Italian Seasoning(dried)

Place chicken breast in 8x11 casserole dish. Pour cherry tomatoes over chicken. Drizzle chicken and tomatoes with olive oil and sea salt. 

I would recommend no more than a tsp of olive oil per breast. Then sprinkle chicken and tomatoes liberally with dried Italian seasoning. Place in oven that has been preheated to 350.  This will bake for about 35-45 minutes.  When juices run clear on chicken breast they are done.  The tomatoes will burst into yummy goodness and those juices help keep the chicken moist and yummy.

While the chicken is cooking, make rice as directed,on stove top.

As for the asparagus, drizzle with olive oil, no more than a tablespoon or so and mix thoroughly ensuring that each asparagus is coated.  Sprinkle with sea salt and lay flat on cookie sheet.  When chicken comes out of the oven, up the oven temp. to 450 and place the asparagus in oven. Roast them for about 10 minutes while you are dishing up the chicken and rice and serve.

So, this meal makes a regular appearance on our table because it is easy, healthy and yummy, to everyone except the teenager, but that could change;-)

Please let me know if you try it and how you like it!!

Happy Cooking!

Jennifer