Foil Packet Italian Chicken - Yummy!

I already had my fortnightly menu planned out for the next two weeks, but while I was perusing food blogs yesterday I came across this recipe for Foil Packet Italian Chicken on http://amberskitchen.blogspot.com/ and thought I'd give it a go. As I would have said when I was a kid this was easy peasy Japaneasy! It took me no time to put together and the result was a delicious moist chicken breast with lots of flavor and the tender potatoes were divine too.

Typically I find that cooking potatoes during the week unless we have them mashed (not my favorite at all!) just takes too long. That being said, we rarely and I mean RARELY have potatoes during the week. I was excited to be able to have a way to serve potatoes with a weeknight meal. I will definitely be adding this to my rotation of easy and tasty dinner recipes. I served this with a side of green beans and rice pilaf.

Foil Packet Italian Chicken
(Source: Amber's Delectable Delights)


Ingredients
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
3 red potatoes
1/4 cup marinara sauce
1/4 cup Italian cheese blend (or just mozzarella)- I used mozzarella and then a sprinkling of fresh grated parmesan.

Directions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Lay 2 pieces of aluminum foil on a flat surface and spray the middle of each with non-stick cooking stray. Wash and scrub potatoes and slice into very thin slices. Arrange the potatoes onto the middle of the foil about the size of your piece of chicken and sprinkle them with salt and black pepper to taste.
- Mix all of the seasonings into small bowl and sprinkle on both sides of the chicken pieces and place a chicken breast on top of each pile of potatoes. Top each chicken breast with 1/8 cup of marinara sauce and 1/8 cup of cheese. See note.
- Raise up the long sides of foil and fold down twice, do the same thing to the sides of the foil creating an air tight seal. Transfer packets to a baking sheet.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until chicken is 170 degrees. I cooked mine for 40 minutes just to be safe because I'm a little paranoid about uncooked chicken. I also don't have a food thermometer. Remove chicken from oven and let set a few minutes before poking a hole in the foil to release the steam before opening.

***Note***One thing I would do differently next time is on side of the chicken sprinkled with the cheese, I would place a few of the thinly sliced potatoes on top of the cheese. The reason for this being that I found that even though I sprayed the foil, the cheese stuck to it and I felt like I lost some of the cheese. I think putting the potato on top of the cheese would combat this as the potatoes wont stick to the foil. Just a thought.