We’ll start the recipe section with one that got me through college. I used to eat this pretty often in college, because it’s easy to make and easy to clean up afterwards, but still somewhat healthy. The beauty of this recipe comes from the fact that the only things you need to clean up are the pot and the fork you use to cook and eat. Rachel Ray calls these recipes one pot wonders, but this one goes one step further because you don’t even have a cutting board or knife to clean up.

The tools you need:

• A pot
• A fork

The essential ingredients are:

• Your favorite pasta- I use rotini cause it tends to hold sauce better.
• Cream of ____ soup. Your favorite cream soup, I usually use cream of mushroom because I like the flavor.
• Canned chicken breast.
• Your favorite frozen vegetable– In this case I used chopped broccoli. Chopped spinach or corn works well too.

Optional ingredients– If you have these on hand, it will make the sauce taste better.

• Minced or granulated garlic- I love garlic, I always have this on hand and always add it to everything.
• Your favorite herbs- I use italian seasoning.
• A bit of milk. If you like a thinner sauce, you can use milk or water to thin it a bit.
• A pat of butter– makes for a creamier tasting sauce.

The directions

First things first, you need to cook the pasta. Basically follow the directions on the box, except shorten the cook time by about a minute or minute and half– we want the pasta a little undercooked, because we will finish cooking it with the sauce.

Then we need to drain the pasta while keeping it in the pot. Using your fork to hold back the pasta, tip the pot to drain out the water. If you lose a few that’s cool, you can feed your garbage disposal.

Then, return the pot to the stove and toss in the rest of the ingredients. You’ll want to drain the chicken can before you add it, you can use the same method that we used to drain the pasta. Heat on low - medium, stirring every once in a while to prevent the pasta at the bottom from burning. Cook until your vegetables are cooked through. Voila! You’re done. That wasn’t too bad right? If you’re lazy like me, you’ll eat it right out of the pot.

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