May 8th, 2012 - Recipe Challenge: Foil-Pack Chicken and Broccoli Dinner

I was excited for this meal, because it seemed super easy.

I like super easy.

I'm lazy when it comes to dinner.

So of course I was going to try this.

On the menu:

Chicken, broccoli, stuffing foil-pack dinner.

Here is the recipe I used.

Changes I made:

We accidentally used the bacon for this, for breakfast dinner the night before.

(my bad)

So I made it without bacon.

I forgot what I was making, so the chicken breasts were frozen.

Which is probably bad, but I didn't worry about it because all over the bag

(the costco bag)

it claims that you can cook the frozen chicken straightaway...

without thawing...

alas, I have yet to figure out how to do this properly it seems.

The foil... I could not possibly have "torn off a large piece" of tinfoil big enough for

everything to fit inside it and make the ends meet.

I wasn't using giant chicken, it just... was not going to fit.

So it put a second sheet on top, and rolled the edges closed all around.

Thoughts:

Uh... what?

No.

This recipe essentially says:

"1. Throw all ingredients into a foil sheet, and fold up.

2. Let it be in a hot oven for half an hour. Ta-da!!!"

False.

You put all the ingredients in a foil casket and then put it in the oven.

And wait.

And then when the 30 minutes are up, you check, and the chicken isn't even cooked yet.

Then you wait some more.

Yes, my chicken was frozen - but it is thin, and even when I put the frozen chicken in,

by itself, it is usually fully cooked in 25-30 minutes max.

I kept checking the chicken, and it took 75 MINUTES for the chicken to cook.

Which is why, I assume, the broccoli was slightly over-cooked.

Insert here:

My son loved it though, and my husband had no complaints.

My daughter thought it was bad, but ate it anyways.

For ME...

Eating the stuffing was like... as if I had served this:

BLEH.

No.

So, so very wrong.

Overall:

Would I make this again? Probably not.

I like short cuts, but short cuts that were SO SHORTLY CUT that the food

came out like a disasterous lump from beyond the grave... makes the short cut

an unnecessary risk.

Like hacking through a jungle with a machete and there is a hole up ahead

and you can't see it, but you just keep hacking and walking

and then 

BAM!

You're in the hole. 

Stuck in the hole.

You got yourself there!

And now all you can do is try not to go hacking through the jungle again.

Maybe next time you will look at a map.

Or bring along a guide.

So for now, 

we'll let bread do what it does best.

Be awesome.

:o)

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