Chicken Marinara

Last night IKF and I made the easiest dinner ever, and I mean EVER. We had anticipated two guests for dinner at precisely 5 pm, which is exactly the time I normally leave the office, not the time that I am usually home from the office. So... if we do that math.. that's... negative 20 mins to get dinner ready. Thus, food had to be ready before I left for work. IKF would get home at 4:30 and have precisely 15 mins to spruce up the pre-prepared fare before going to pick up our dinner guests.

I always say that constraint breeds creativity and these constraints bred a super-tasty (and did I mention easy?) dinner.

Enter the Crock Pot! (Swiftly becoming my favorite invention in the world.)

Place as many boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the bottom of the crockpot as you have people.

Dump a jar of marinara on top (We use Butonini Italian Sausage something or other, because it was in the cupboard already). Set to low, walk away for 8 hours.

**8 hours later**

Boil water, add pasta (we used farfalle and rotini, again, because that was what was in the cupboard).

Call your wife and have her pick up a bag of salad and a loaf of french bread from the grocery store across the street.

Throw the salad in a bowl, add your left over craisins and almond slivers from the cupboard with a dash of blue cheese dressing. Or fat free italian. If you're cool like that.

Pasta goes on plate, chicken goes on top. Voila! Dinner!

Tear of hunks of french bread and dip them in olive oil and balsamic vinegar as you enjoy your salad and chicken pasta.

Hmm. I really need to start taking pictures of the food that I post about. But, as mentioned before, this was all accomplished in a time warp, and flash photography was not allowed.

Cranberry Crock Pot Chicken

We are having people over for dinner tonight at 6. I'm work until 5 and I have a 20 min commute. So today was a day for one of those super fast, simple, delicious, sophisticated, affordable genius meal ideas.

So I called... my brother? (He's 17.)

Backstory: Last time I was rummaging through my parents fridge looking for sustenance during a wedding planning marathon, I can across a tupperware of chicken in a yummy looking sauce. It was heated (Oh blessed microwaves) and devoured. As I was licking my fingers my mother informed me that my teenage brother had made it... Huh? I didn't think he knew how to make anything other than poptarts. Apparently, for a recent church activity, they taught the boys how to cook, so Sam came home and made dinner for the family. I made a note to abscond with the recipe at the nearest opportunity.

Which brings us to our adventure today in Cranberry Chicken. The orignal recipe was simply baked, however, with my short timeline I decided to give it a shot with the Crock Pot. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Crazy Simple Cranberry Crock Pot Chicken

Drop 6 boneless, skinless chicken breast in the Crockpot (frozen, thawed, whatever)

Mix in a bowl:
1 can whole cranberry sauce
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 1/2 c. russian or catalina or french dressing (pick one)

Pour the cranberry mixture over the chicken. Cook on low for 8 hours.

ps. My favorite part is that this only has 4 ingredients. 4!