Quick and Easy Dinner #2: Cranberry Chicken & Parmesan Crusted Asparagus

Continuing my series for the month of May on quick and easy dinners, I've got a great one that requires very little prep: Cranberry Chicken with rice and Parmesan Crusted Asparagus. Both recipes require very few ingredients and will allow you more time to rest your feet after a long day.

Ingredients

Cranberry Chicken

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 can whole cranberries

1 packet French onion soup mix

3/4 cup Catalina salad dressing

Parmesan Crusted Asparagus

1 bunch thin asparagus spears

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Black pepper

Salt
Garlic salt

Directions

Cranberry Chicken

1. Preheat oven to 325

2. Spray 9x9 in pan or pyrex dish with cooking spray and place chicken breasts in dish

3. Mix together cranberries, French onion soup mix, and Catalina dressing in a separate bowl. Then pour mixture over chicken breasts.

4. Cover pan with foil and back for 1.5 hours. Uncover the pan for the last 20 minutes. (If you don't want to wait this long, bump the heat up to 350 and bake for 1 hour). 

5. If you don't make the asparagus, 10 minutes before the chicken is done, cook rice to serve with chicken. Personally, I prefer Minute Whole Grain Brown Rice. If you do make the asparagus, refer to the directions below.

Parmesan Crusted Asparagus

While the chicken is cooking, prep the asparagus. 

1. Rinse the asparagus in the sink and then spread out on cookie sheet (it's ideal if your cookie sheet has edges). 

2. Drizzle olive oil over asparagus sheers and toss to coat each one. Then spread them out in a single layer so that no spear is on top of another. 

3. Sprinkle Parmesan over asparagus and season with black pepper, salt, and garlic salt to taste. 

4. After you've pulled the chicken out of the oven, cover it again with the foil to keep it warm. Bump the heat up on the oven to 425 and bake for 12-15 minutes or asparagus is just tender. 

5. Once the asparagus is in the oven, begin cooking rice to serve with the chicken.

The Parmesan Crusted Asparagus recipe is adjusted from one I found on allrecipes.com. Thanks to Rachel and Chad for sharing it with me :)