Have you ever had that feeling after cooking up an experiment? This is exactly what happened to me last night. With the onslaught of raw, wet weather that we have been having, I have been cooking some pretty rich dishes; beef stroganoff, Sunday gravy, etc. Hubs declared he wanted something a little lighter and we agreed on a grilled chicken salad of some sort. Then the rains came, and by rain I mean a fucking monsoon! Thunder, lighting, torrential downpours, local flooding; it was horrible. Needless to say, there was no way I was grilling in that. So, I started thinking....what do I have on hand that he likes and will be easy for me to prepare???? hmmmm???? I remembered I had a bunch of homemade pesto in the freezer. Hubs goes gaga for pesto. I also had some plum tomatoes that were starting to shrink so those came in to play. Tomato and pesto go together like bullets and guns. Then, I decided on a casserole to make things easy for me. I started looking at online recipes and discovered that most of the chicken and rice casseroles used quick cooking rice. I only have regular rice so those recipes were out. We had pasta with that Sunday gravy I mentioned so, subbing the rice for pasta wasn't even a consideration. After reviewing a few more recipes I hatched up a plan and I have to tell you, even I was surprised by how well it turned out. I liked it even better a few hours later when it was room temperature (I was nibbling on the rice after my dance class). Here is what I did:
Pesto Chicken and Rice Casserole
2 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, filleted in half lengthwise (you should have 4 pieces)
1-2 Cups pesto sauce
2 Tbs chicken base
2 1/4 C water
1 1/2 Cups white rice
1 C half and half
3-4 plum tomatoes sliced 1/4 in thick
2 Cups shredded mozzarella cheese
To begin add water, chicken base and about 2 Tbs of pesto to a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and add rice. Give a quick stir, put on the lid and turn off the heat. Let stand until water is absorbed. Rice will not be completely cooked through, that is what you want.
While the rice is steeping, marinade the chicken breasts in the remaining pesto sauce. I just throw everything into a ziploc bag and mush it all around to ensure everything is well coated.
At this point, you can let the chicken and the rice hang out as long as you want until it's ready to get cooking. I left mine for a couple hours.
When ready to assemble, preheat your over to 350F. Spray the inside of a casserole dish with oil. You want your dish to be large enough to lay the breasts out flat. It is ok if they are squished together as long as they are not layered on top of each other.
Give your partially cooked rice a stir and spread on the bottom of the casserole dish. Pour half and half over rice. Next top the rice with your marinated chicken breast pieces. Top those with a layer of sliced tomatoes. Place the lid on the casserole dish and bake for about 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Remove the casserole from the oven and remove the lid. Cover the surface of the casserole with mozzarella cheese and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or until cheese is all melted. If you want to brown the cheese you can hit it with the broiler after it melts but it is not necessary. Let stand a few minutes before serving.
For the record, I did contemplate taking a picture of this for the blog, but it was a white casserole dish covered with white cheese. Not much to look at. Once it was on my plate, I was too busy shoving it into my face hole to take any pictures. Again, it's a casserole and not very photogenic anyway. Just trust me when I say it was yummy even if it wasn't super pretty.
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