I knew that today was going to be long and stressful, so I tried to think about how to deal with dinner in a relatively low-intensity way (WITHOUT resorting to fast food/frozen pizza/etc). So...Last night I got 4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts out of the freezer to defrost.
I then dumped one can of cream of chicken soup and one can of chicken broth into a bowl and whisked them together. To that I added 1/4 tsp. each of dried dill, basil, thyme, and fine-ground black pepper and whisked it some more. Finally, I chopped some onion, celery, and fresh parsley and stirred those into the bowl. The bowl (covered) then went into the fridge for the night.
This morning when I opened the bowl the blended ingredients smelled quite yummy! I got out my Crock-Pot and sprayed it with non-stick chemical repellant (aka Pam). I laid the four chicken breasts into the Crock-Pot and then poured the sauce I had made over them. The crock part of the Crock-Pot then went into the fridge, as I didn't think my little chickens were going to need to cook for 12 full hours!
At noon, GrandmaT put the crock back in to the pot and turned it on low. When I got home at 6:00 there was still plenty of liquid and the chicken was fairly tender. I dumped in a box of Chicken & Broccoli-flavored Rice-a-Roni (including both the rice AND the seasoning packet) and stirred things around. After another 30 minutes the chicken was starting to shred and the rice was fully cooked and tender.
Result: Two thumbs up, all around! Almost anything can be cooked in a Crock-Pot. They key is to have plenty of liquid and not let things dry out. This was a verrrrrry minimal-prep, minimal-mess dinner, and it tasted good. Use low-sodium versions of the soup and broth and it's not totally unhealthy either. Have a salad for your greens and you're all set!
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