Chicken with Rice and Broccoli

I am in full-swing... preparing for my 10 year old's birthday party (the one that was rescheduled). It is tomorrow. Today I have to bake the cake, decorate the cake and clean up the house. Not too much work considering I have de-cluttered a good 80% of my house (not counting the attic and a closet here and there). I also got a jump start on the cleaning by taking care of my living room, reading room and dining room yesterday. Not to mention some other cleaning I have been doing throughout the week. So my lack of posts is understandable due tobeing super busy right now.

But last night, I wanted a good dinner. I also wanted something fast, totally in contradiction to my menu plans for last night. So we deviated from the menu. Instead of the planned meal, I fixed up a super easy, healthy, fast, and good dinner of chicken and rice with some broccoli.

Ingredients:
chicken breast tenders (enough for your family - I used 10 chicken breast tenders for myself and the 3 kiddos)
1 Tbsp oil (for cooking)
2 cups fresh or frozen broccoli
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp margarine or butter
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups minute rice
2 cups water
salt to taste

In a large frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. When the oil is ready, add the chicken to the pan. You are only going for some color, you don't want to fry the chicken all the way. About 2-3 minutes on each side should be good.

Drain off the oil and return the pan to the stove. Add the broccoli, onion, 1/4 cup water and margarine or butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to your taste. Bring the water to a boil.

Cover the pan (mine did not come with a lid and is very large, so I use a pizza pan to cover it), reduce the heat to medium-low and allow to cook for 5-6 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, prepare the minute rice. Normally, I would use regular rice or brown rice but as I wanted something fast and easy, I used minute rice. Bring the 2 cups of water to a boil over high heat. Add the minute rice, stir, put a lid on the pot and turn off the heat. The rice should be ready to go by the time the chicken is finished cooking.

Place the cooked rice on the plate and put the chicken and broccoli on top. We like to add a little bit of soy sauce to give some extra flavor.

Prep time: about 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes