Dear Ladies,
This week we tried a new recipe. The meal is simple to make and is a basic Mexican chicken and rice dinner that is bound to please most of the hungry people in your house. Below is the recipe. Since I rarely follow a dinner recipe exactly I also included the changes I made.
Enjoy,
Melissa

Foil-Pack Chicken Fajita Dinner
1 1/2 cups instant white rice, uncooked
1 1/2 cups hot water
1 Tbsp. taco seasoning mix
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb)
1 each green ad red pepper, cut into strips
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 cup shredded taco or cheddar cheese

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Use four 18x12 inch sheets of foil to make packets. Spray foil with cooking spray. Combine rice, water and taco seasoning; spoon onto centers of foil. Top with chicken, peppers, salsa and cheese. Bring up foil sides and double fold top and ends to seal each packet, leaving room for heat circulation. Place packets on baking sheet. Bake 30-35 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.(165 degrees) Let stand 5 minutes. Cut slits in foil to release steam before opening packets.
Serving suggestion: top each portion with sour cream
Make ahead: prepare foil packets and refrigerate up to 1 day.


Melissa's Variations:

The first thing I did different was to use regular rice. The amount of instant rice I had in the house was not enough to feed my family, so I cooked regular rice.

Quick rice in the microwave technique:
Measure 2 cups of water to every 1 cup of rice and combine in a casserole dish. Leaving the dish uncovered cook the rice for 20 minutes in the microwave. When the time is complete there should not be any water on the surface of the rice, cover the dish and allow the rice to set for about 10 minutes. This allows the rice a chance to steam and absorb the water.

I thought the foil packets would take too much time, so I layered everything in a 9x13"dish. I topped the seasoned rice with boneless, skinless chicken thighs, salsa, green peppers and cheese. I covered the dish with foil and baked for about 1 hour. The chicken was very moist, but the rice needed more seasoning. I used more rice then the recipe called for, but did not increase the taco seasoning amount enough.
This is a very simple recipe and will probably please the majority of the people in your household. The green peppers add a nice flavor and color to the meal, but are easy to leave out or remove later for picky eaters.

Our Growing Girl