Best Mom Tip #129: Pour something on some chicken

I am not a good cook. What I can do, is open jars of stuff. I have learned that if you pour a jar of something you like over some boneless, skinless chicken breasts, it will taste pretty good. You add some french bread and a spinach salad and it is almost as if you've prepared a meal. My family seems taken in by it so I thought you might be able to fool your family, too. You know, in case you are just as bad of a cook as I am.

Basically, you just put some thawed chicken breasts into a casserole dish and pour a lot of something on top. Then you cover it and bake it in the oven on 375-400 for 45 minutes to an hour. It depends on how thick the chicken is, but if you make it 400 degrees for an hour, it is going to be cooked. Tough, maybe, but not raw.

So what, exactly, are you pouring over the chicken? Salsa. Spaghetti sauce. Bar-b-cue sauce. Honey mustard. Just honey. Just mustard. Really, anything you like that will pour. I bet beer would work, but that might not be good for the kids.

Anyway, putting a lid on the dish makes the sauce thin out and flavor the chicken and it takes absolutely no prep. You can experiment a few times to find the right temperature/time ratio depending on how thawed your chicken is, how thick the breasts are, and how your oven cooks. If all else fails and the chicken didn't cook all the way through and it is time to eat, just pour everything into a skillet and cut up the chicken and it will all cook in about 5-10 minutes.

Then you can act like you meant it to be that way and serve it over rice or noodles. Remember, being successful is all about acting like you know what you are doing. Even with dinner.