Guess what? We are not making pizza :) We are making one of my favorite 'lazy' dinners of all time. There are two types of 'lazy dinners' 1) The kind you stick directly in the microwave and then eat. Examples being: small pizzas, pizza bites, precooked breaded chicken, and anything frozen, really. We use these after both of us have worked a full shift that day, and are too tired to even turn the oven on. As cooks, the LAST thing we want to do after a 10 hour work shift, is cook a huge meal. 2)A cooked meal using the oven or stove that takes less than 30 minutes. Usually requiring little to no effort. Examples being: Spaghetti, Chicken and dressing(next food blog), frozen skillet meals, and Pizza Chicken :) This dish was first introduced to me at my fiance's parents house. It was a favorite lazy dish for them as well. It get's it's name from the main components of pizza: Sauce, Meat, Starch, and cheese.
Here it what you will need!
-Raw Chicken (I prefer thin breasts for this)
-A baking dish (big enough to fit how much chicken you want)
-Your favorite spaghetti sauce
-Shredded cheese
(Optional) -Cooked pasta (If you don't plan on serving any side dishes with this)
-Oven
Let's begin! Preheat oven to 375
Since I am only feeding two people, and because thin breasts cook quickly, I LOVE using my favorite pie dish for a lot of my cooking. Pour about half the can in the dish. Or jar, or homemade...however you like your red sauce :)
Next! place your chicken on top. Since we put the sauce down first, we didn't need to grease the pan. I poured the rest of the can on top...Which turned out to be too much... I got excited :)
Put that in the oven, and set a 15 minute timer! Since we were tired, we didn't want to make a bunch of sides for this (Which you totally could if you wanted) So I looked into my 'healthy' stock of pasta .
We keep a lot of different types of pasta on hand because its very cheap and very easy to add to anything.
IF you choose to do it my way, cook about one cup of pasta per person. Take the 15 minutes to cook the pasta while the chicken is baking. After 15 minutes are up! Your pasta should be done (Just let it hang out in strainer in the sink for a minute) I slid the rack out a little and let my fiance put a
heap of cheese on top. We just used Kroger's 'pizza' blend. What ever is
your favorite will work :)
I didn't like the uneven lumps he made, so I smoothed it out :) Let this cook for about 5 minutes, just to let the cheese melt (watch it!)
We dumped our cooked bow ties into our bowls.
Then we ladled the chicken and sauce over the top! (The chicken was tender enough to cut with a spoon in the bowl, but if you really want, you could have cut it up into bite size pieces in the beginning)
I sprinkled extra shredded cheese, Dry Parmesan cheese, and garlic salt for my bowl .
Like my Roosters in the kitchen? :)
Though this was a lot to type out, and there were a lot of pictures.... It was ready to eat in under 25 minutes. Be sure to leave a comment, or drop by my facebook page if you ever decide to try it!
