Tonight's dinner - A case study in cooking simplicity

Tonight I came home from the office tired and cold. The last thing I felt like doing was whipping up another meal that is tasty, healthy and easy to prepare. My wife was home from work sick with a bad cold, so I was on my own when it came to dinner. Luckily though, she had put a couple of massive chicken breasts in some raspberry balsamic salad dressing to marinate much earlier in the day. So my challenge was creating something worth eating that wouldn't take a lot of prep time.

I looked in the fridge and found some yellow zucchini squash that I bought a couple of days ago. The wheels started turning and my wife suggested doing something with chicken and brown rice. Voila! We had a big block of asiago cheese from Sam's and some Dei Fratelli crushed tomatoes. In a few seconds, as I have done countless times before, I mentally assembled a dish I knew had possibilities for tastiness and ease of preparation.

I took a healthy cup of dry brown rice and spread it evenly over the bottom of a 9 by 13 Pyrex baking dish. I poured about a cup of chicken broth (low sodium and no MSG) over the rice. Then I sliced the yellow zucchini squash in one inch thick strips and placed them on top of the rice around the perimeter of the baking dish. In the space that was left in the center of the dish I placed the two chicken breasts. I covered the whole concoction with the tomatoes and then sprinkled about a cup to a cup and a half of grated asiago cheese over the entire dish. Finally, I sprinkled some garlic powder (not garlic salt) and Turkish Oregano from Penzey's spices over the dish. Total preparation time: 15 minutes!

I placed the Pyrex dish in the oven preheated to 375 degrees and cooked it uncovered for one hour until the cheese was golden brown. Keep in mind I had never made this recipe or anything quite like it before. For me, part of the fun of cooking is trying new things that I pretty much know will taste good together. Remember, I have a sixth sense for what something will taste like before I ever make it. I know, it's a gift! In all modesty, the dish turned out better than I could have possibly hoped. Part of the credit should go to using top quality ingredients. Good quality ingredients can go a long way towards making any dish a keeper. When I figure out how to upload pictures onto this site from my digital camera, I will start giving you pictures of all the dishes I cook along with the recipe. Until then, tonight's dinner was a perfect example of if you can imagine it, somebody can cook it. Tonight, I imagined it and I cooked it. Yum.