Forget About Me Chicken with Rice (or potatoes)

Adapted to my own tastes from other pins about slow-bake chicken around Pinterest

Ingredients

3- 6 (or 8 even) Boneless skinless chicken breasts, depending upon how many you want to feed or if you want leftovers for lunch later in the week
2 cups minute rice or 2-3 baking potatoes of your fave variety, diced
1 pkg. onion soup mix (or equivalent homemade mix )
2 cans (10.5 oz each) cream of insert fave variety here soup(chicken, mushroom, celery, broccoli whatever).
1 can water
veggies (optional- roughly one can worth)
seasonings sprinkled to taste (thyme, basil, cardamom, garlic powder, celery seed etc)
salt and pepper blend

1. mix your two cans or equivalent cream of soups and your onion soup mix in a 13 x 9 baking pan. If you are not using stoneware (why are you not using stoneware??) butter the bottom of the pan. Smush/stir until you have the big lumps out, but don't worry about it too much.

Notice that i did not start with preheating the oven. Oven temperature is a myth... Google it if you don't believe me, and is especially NOT important in this recipe. If you want this to slow cook, set your oven around 200-250(cool oven). If you want it in 2 1/2 to 3 hours, set it around 275 or 300(high cool oven). If you want it in an hour -1 1/2 hours set it around 350-375(moderate oven). You can even set it as you stick the pan in there, especially if you are slow cooking this one. 

2. Add your rice or diced potatoes and stir. If you want to add veggies, made a well in the center and stick 'em in there.  I live in high altitude, so I leave about half the water in the can of veggies as liquids boil off faster here. 

You see how super-technical this is, right?

3. Now is the time to customize your flavor: add whatever of your favorite seasonings in a sprinkle across the surface: thyme, oregano, cumin, basil... if it's green, it will probably go in just fine. I won't blanket-approve here, because there are some weird herbs out there that have some strong flavors, but any of the basics will do. Whatever floats your goat.

4. Lay your chicken across the top of your mix. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. If you are NOT slow-cooking this, you may want to use a tenderizer to flatten out any particularly thick bits. If you are slow cooking, or like me decided to slice up your breast halves into more manageable bits, you will be fine.  COVER WITH FOIL! This is the one step you really can't forget here people. Stick that pan in the oven at your desired temperature, for something approximating a time frame  You can even forget it is in there for a while. You'll smell it if you forget it for enough hours to burn it.(likely smell it before if burns and get that hungry-grumble reminder from your stomach) There's lots of wiggle room in this recipe. If you can mange to screw it up, let me know. I'll be impressed.

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So. After I made this with potatoes for the first time tonight (because SOMEONE doesn't like the texture of rice [barbarian], I can admit it didn't come out as expected. With rice, the liquid is absorbed and this comes out as a casserole. With potatoes, it comes out as a thick stew. I was not planning for stew, but wow, it was yummy! Throw in some oyster crackers, grab bowls instead of plates, dinner is served. :)