A New Family Favorite

I think it was January of 2010 that I decided I would try to make one new dinner each week. I Wish I could say I now have over 60 new dinners in my repertoire, but I failed. After a few weeks I ran into roadblocks, and, like other new years resolutions, it died out.

This has nothing to do with why I tried a new recipe tonight. Really that was just necessity. I had some left over brown rice and a somewhat picky 8 year old coming for dinner along with no hubby to keep the hungry boys occupied until it was done. I knew I could pretty easily throw together some chicken and rice with some vegetable and some cream of something soup, but that sounded pretty lack luster to me.

I like the Kraft website because you can put in ingredients that you have and it will give you recipes that match. My ingredients: chicken, brown rice, and carrots. I almost passed over this recipe because I didn't like the name. I was hoping for something healthy with a moderate calorie count, and the name just didn't shout that to me, but turns out at less than 500 Calories per serving it wasn't too bad (and by the way a serving was way more than enough for me). So, here it is:

Farmhouse Chicken Dinner (see what I mean about the name, sounds a little too hearty)

I made a few adjustments:

• I didn't have any Light Zesty Italian, only Fat Free Italian, which doesn't work to cook chicken in so I mixed half olive oil and half dressing. It worked fine, but I'm sure it would also be great as directed.
• After reading a couple of reviews I got worried that it was going to be bland, so I added a little garlic salt. I think it would be great to add some to the flour mixture, although I didn't feel the dish was bland at all.
• It didn't take 20 minutes!! I hate overcooked chicken so at about 14 minutes of simmering I stuck my meat thermometer in and discovered it was cooked through so I took it out.
• I didn't use instant rice because I already had leftover brown rice. The rice doesn't cook with the chicken, so it doesn't matter.
• I forgot the parsley... oops

What I liked:

It was very easy to make and called for ingredients that I almost always have on hand. It was delicious; the combination of flavors seemed right to me, but I'm no food critic. The carrots were yummy and flavored with the sauce and cooked to just tender (with only 14 minutes). The chicken was cooked to perfection. I don't know if I or the recipe get credit for that, but either way it was luscious (ok I know Ryan Lamb doesn't read my blog, but if he did he would be laughing right now)

What I didn't like:

Once it was all served up on the plate, it had a bit of a casserole feel to it and that's just not my favorite, nor Tyler's. The sauce didn't thicken, at least in the time that I gave it. Even runny, it made for a great gravy.

Back to how I started this long post - this meal has inspired me to get back to my one new meal each week goal, but this time I have a new idea of how to stick with it. I am going to post the recipe and my review each week. I hope you enjoy. If not, maybe at some point I'll follow it with pictures of my always darling boys :)

Also, if you have any favorite dinner recipes please share!