Plateful of Yummy

Guys, I'm on a roll lately with recipes and cooking and what-not. Like for real, and I've been loving it! Last night Jeff's Mama was a bit under the weather, and so I volunteered to go over and cook for their family. I made a delicious meal, in fact a Plateful of Yummy, and so I of course wanted to share it with you lovely people!

SIDE NOTE: There are now 50 of you lovely people! I remember just a few months back in the spring-time, I had only like 12 followers, and now I have 50! What an amazing surprise and excitement and blessing! So glad to have you here, now feel free to share my blog with another friend as well ;) And thank you to those first 12 that have been faithful the whole time! (Which is mostly my family and closest friends, so definitely Thank You to y'all.)

Back to business now though...I haven't yet come up with an official name for this recipe, but maybe by the end of the post I'll come up with something. It's a giant rice and veggie and chicken concoction, sprinkled with some cheese on top. Yum! It's really yummy, but more importantly sometimes, it's super easy. Also, it's pretty healthy since it's brown rice, meat and fresh veggies! (I mean, I'm not a dietitian or anything, nor did I figure out the calories, but I'm saying it's decently healthy, OK.)

Ingredients
3 cups (uncooked) brown rice
diced green bell pepper
1 sliced zucchini
1 can sweet corn (drained)
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can diced tomatoes with garlic (slightly drained, but leave some of the juices in it)
1 pack of Perdue Short Cuts southwest chicken (it's precooked, and so yummy)
Shredded Colby Jack & Cheddar cheese
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil

Directions
Cook rice according to directions. While rice is cooking, continue with the following steps...
Heat olive oil on medium in large skillet, add in sliced zucchini & green bell pepper and S&P
Dice up chicken a little more, and add to skillet
Once zucchini and pepper's are sauteed almost completely, add in corn, beans and tomatoes
Make sure everything in skillet is heated through
Once rice is cooked and skillet stuff is ready, mix it all together in one big pot!
Serve with sprinkled cheese on top

And here a few extra things to note...
+I wish I would have included some onion as well, because I love cooking with onion
+For last night, I left out any spice or kick (just to be safe) but I would like to try it with some red pepper flakes or something to kick it up a notch next time
+You could also experiment with some additional spices like cumin or chili powder to kick it up too

This recipe fed 5 people, and two of us had seconds. And there's still leftovers! So keep that in mind when preparing it, and scale it back if you're making it for fewer people. Or make this same amount and eat it for a few days, in a few different ways! Like for my lunch tomorrow, I think I might probably heat it back up, and stuff it in a pita with some salsa and cheese. Sounds so good, right?! I think so at least :)

So that's that. A quick, yummy, "healthy" recipe that will feed you and your loved ones. Oh, and I forgot to mention it's pretty cheap too! All of those ingredients (minus the olive oil because we already had that) only cost about $15! Awesome price for the amount of people it serves! Try it out, and let me know how it goes for you, or how you chose to alter it, if any at all!

But I still couldn't come up with a short, simple, catchy name for this - so please feel free to include some suggestions in the comments below! Thanks friends :)

Happy Cooking, and Happy Eating!