May recipe: Chicken & Broccoli Rice Bowl

For my birthday I got a subscription to Cooking Light magazine, which I love. In general, I find their recipes are easy (without being simplistic), tasty and acceptable to everyone in the family. I always read through every recipe, flag a bunch, and even get around to making a few. To incent myself to try more recipes, I'm committing to sharing one from each issue with you every month (at least until the subscription runs out).

The April issue was their Quick-Cooking Special and featured tons of fast and easy recipes. I particularly liked the Supermarket Shortcut Solutions article, where they used convenience grocery store items - pizza dough, fresh pasta, hummus, precooked brown rice and rotisserie chicken - to create 19 different quick dinners. My recipe of choice was Chicken and Broccoli Rice Bowl, which used one of those packages of precooked rice that just needs to be heated in the microwave for 90 seconds - a brilliant dinnertime invention, if you ask me. It also uses Velveeta which I've never bought before - I'm not sure if it has any redeeming nutritional value, but it was delicious in this recipe!

Cooking Light's Chicken & Broccoli Rice Bowl
3 cups small broccoli florets
1 (8.8-ounce) pouch precooked brown rice (such as Uncle Ben's)
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup chopped green onions
3 ounces light processed cheese (such as Velveeta Light), cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted (I didn't use these)

1.  Steam broccoli 5 minutes or until crisp-tender.
2.  Heat rice according to directions.
3.  Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook for 4 minutes or until done, stirring occasionally. Add onions and cheese, stirring until cheese begins to melt. Stir in rice; fold in broccoli. Cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Sprinkle with almonds.

Bon appetit!