Baked Buffalo Chicken

Do you ever take chicken out of the freezer, let it thaw and then don't know what to do with it? My fallback chicken preparation method is this Baked Buffalo Chicken.

This chicken is good on its own, with a couple of side dishes. I like to cut it up in a salad or make a buffalo chicken sandwich.

I make a few modifications to this recipe. First, I double the sauce. What the recipe makes just doesn't seem to cover the chicken enough. Second, I don't brown the chicken on the stovetop. I just throw it in a baking dish, cover it with the sauce and shove it in the oven.

cooking spray

4 (4-ounce) skinned, boneless chicken breasts

1/4 cup hot sauce (like Frank's hot sauce -- if you want to kick up the heat, add a few drops of Tabasco)

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 tablespoon stick margarine, melted

1 teaspoon celery seeds

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup fat-free blue cheese dressing

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray; place over medium heat until hot. Add chicken; cook 4 minutes on each side or until browned. Place chicken in a 11x7 baking dish coated with cooking spray.

Combine hot sauce and next 4 ingredients; pour over chicken. (I like to make sure the chicken is entirely coated in the sauce.) Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

Serve with blue cheese dressing. (Serving size: 1 chicken breast and 2 tablespoons dressing)

My new favorite pasta dinner

It's quick, it's easy.

When it comes to cooking, those are the two most important things for me.

And I hate lots of leftovers.

But it seems like the leftovers from my new favorite pasta dish — alfredo with chicken, spinach and tomatoes — don't last long enough.

Lightly saute 1/2 to 2/3 of a bag of spinach with a few cloves of fresh garlic. Use the whole bag if you really like spinach (or if you don't have chicken, like happened to me one night).

Dump in a jar of alfredo sauce. I've been using the Progresso brand because they make a good "light" version. (If you're a fancy cook, like Dorsey, you could make the alfredo sauce from scratch. I'm not that adventurous.) Depending on how much spinach I've used, sometimes I thin the sauce down with a bit of milk.

Turn the heat down to low.

Toss in chopped, cooked chicken. I had an extra chicken breast or two from another other dish I had made.

Add grape tomatoes that have been sliced in half. I liked the sweetness of the grape tomatoes with the other flavors. I'm sure any other kind of tomato would work.

Simmer the sauce over low long enough to heat everything up. The spinach will wilt more while the sauce is heating.

I've been serving this over whole wheat penne pasta with a touch of Parmesan cheese.