I love cooking from scratch.  But there are days (like yesterday) when I simply wasn’t put together enough.  Sunday afternoons are my time to put my shopping list and coupons together, to get a menu planned, and to organize my cooking plans for the week.  This past Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday and I ended up making a batch of hummus and having some down-time before the party – getting nothing planned, sorted, or organized.

So when yesterday came, I was running behind and then found that the crappy dishwasher was about to be renamed the dish-dirtier, because all of the supposedly clean dishes in it weren’t.  And by the time Mark got that worked on a bit, I was staring down the barrel at 5pm and had nothing cooking for dinner.

Which brings in my go-to quick meal.  It’s not Sally-Fallon-approved and can be improved with brown rice, but at least it tastes good and has protein in it.  It’s not from a fast-food joint and it’s not a rotisserie chicken, although the latter is my idea of ‘fast food,’ mostly because I can get three meals out of one pre-roasted chicken.  There are just days when I have to be flexible and roll with the punches and meals like this in my arsenal insure that we at least have a home-cooked meal.  Happily, my guys love it – it’s saucy, comfort-food-ish, and has good flavour.  The celery adds a depth of flavour that cream of chicken soup doesn’t have, but cream of chicken will also work for this dish.

Cheesy Chicken

1 jar Ragu Double-Cheese pasta sauce
1 can cream of celery soup
4-6 frozen chicken breasts

Whisk the cheese sauce and celery soup in a pan or crockpot (if you’re thinking ahead) until smooth.  Place frozen chicken in the sauce, turn the pan on medium or the crockpot on high (for 3 hours; low for 6 hours).  When chicken is cooked, serve with rice or noodles & a salad.  Dinner’s done!