I Survived the Feast of Fowl

I think I've found my first dish that I will enter into this thing called Regular Rotation.

Regular Rotation, as I understand it: your go-to meals. Meals that you feel confident making, that are straightforward to make, that everyone can agree on, that won't kill or sicken the masses.

Last night, I made Easy Tomato Baked Chicken from Kraft Foods. I'd made this dish probably 10 years ago and remembered it being tasty and relatively easy.

THERE IS NO SHAME IN THE WORD EASY, BY THE WAY.

Listen, I have no illusion about becoming Rachel, Julia, Emeril, or that Pioneer chick. This is me, people, a nervous idiot whose main goal is to cook without poisoning myself or others (once I get to that point--right now, I'm just cooking for moi).

I love easy recipes. I'm fairly certain you don't win a prize or extra life chips for spending three hours slaving over dinner as opposed to whipping something up in 30 minutes. I could use that extra 2.5 hours doing something else: reading, writing, contemplating my navel, figuring out how to get the crusty stains off my tub.

This recipe was easy, tasty, and healthy.

Plus! And this is big, folks--I'm turning this into a two-fer. Meaning, I had my meal last night (the chicken dish with a lovely salad) and tonight, I'll be taking the leftovers, chopping them up, reheating them, possibly adding more sauce (jarred--LEAVE ME ALONE), and tossing it with some cooked pasta. TOTALLY NEW DISH that will likely feed me for a couple more nights while I finish Netflixing The People vs. OJ Simpson.

Reasons I liked this dish:

• Very few ingredients (see pic above)
• Very few steps
• Didn't require any chunking of chicken, thus I didn't need to have my glass of bleach water under my sink
• Prep time was correct: about 10 minutes
• Cook time--I gave it longer than what was called for due to Fear of Fowl.*
• It's a year-round dish. Light enough for summer for sure. But works for winter (I could see a side of rice and some sort of heartier winter veggie)
• I could see myself being able to make this in other people's homes (my parents, the imaginary boyfriend, etc.) or bringing it to someone else's home

*Regarding the Fear of Fowl: I opted for thin chicken breasts because I figured I could trust them cooking faster/properly. Of course, I was still nervous, so I gave the cook time an extra 10 minutes, checked the chicken to make sure it was at 165 degrees at least, DIDN'T TRUST THE THERMOMETER, and put it back in the oven to cook a little longer.

The beauty of this recipe is that the chicken doesn't dry out due to my over zealousness. The juices from the diced tomatoes kept it moist, although the cheese on top got crusty, but in a good way.

It tasted splendid and so far--12 hours out--no signs of food poisoning. A TOTAL WIN.

Let me know if you try it.