This recipe gives you a simple, rib-sticking chicken breast on a bed of chicken flavored rice. The rice by itself makes a pretty good emergency snack, if, like me, you never seem to have both milk and Frosted Flakes at the same time.

Here's your grocery list.

• Box of instant rice
• Chicken bouillon - in the soup aisle - It's a jar or box of little cubes
• Package of unfrozen, boneless chicken breasts
• Poultry seasoning - I use something called McCormicks Poultry Seasoning, a jar about 2 inches in diameter and about 4 1/2 inches high

Supplies

• A pan at least three inches deep
• A bowl
• Something to measure with - a measuring cup or a large coffee mug
• A couple forks for turning the meat

I want to start by suggesting that you use fresh, and not frozen chicken breasts. When I use frozen chicken, trying to cook and thaw and separate the clump of fowl flesh is quite a hassle. (If you do use frozen, go ahead and start with the one big fowl ball and as it cooks, take the pan out a few times, set it on top of the stove and use a fork or a screwdriver to try to pry the individual pieces apart. It may not be as good as thawing it hours before, but it's quicker.)

Place the chicken in the pan and fill the pan with water so that it covers the pieces. Put the pan in the over at 450 degrees. Why cook in water? First, it's much harder to burn, so you don't have to worry about precise cooking time - just make sure that it's done enough. You can let it cook a bit longer if you're not sure. Second, it keeps the meat very moist. Finally, I've noticed that it tends to draw a lot of the chicken fat out.

For the first twenty minutes, the chicken should be just about covered with water. After that, take the pan out and drain off half of the water, dumping out the fatty bits of chicken grease floating around. Turn the meat over and cook it for another fifteen minutes. At the end of that time, take the pan out, dump out all but a small layer of water. Turn the chicken breasts again and sprinkle the poultry seasoning onto the chicken so that it's pretty well covered. Put it back for another fifteen minutes. This will crisp the outer surface a little bit.

That's three cooking phases. At each phase, drain water and turn the meat. On the last phase, after you've turned the meat, sprinkle on the seasoning.

You can fix the rice during the third phase. Put a cup of water into the bowl and drop in a couple chicken bouillon cubes. The cubes I use aren't very large, less than a half inch per side. If you have larger cubes, use just one. Put the water and the cubes into the microwave for a minute to soften up the bullion. Then take out the bowl and crunch up what's left with a fork and stir it around until it dissolves.

Then put in a cup of the instant rice. Remember that 1 cup of water plus 1 cup of rice equals 1.01 cups of soggy rice, so you don't need too much extra room. Stir the rice into the bullion broth. Next, open the can of chicken meat, cut up the chunks and drop them into your bowl.

Put the rice back into the microwave for five minutes on high. When it's done, take it out and let it sit for another five minutes to cool down and to let the rice absorb the rest of the water.

When the chicken in the oven is done, Pour out the rice onto your plate and put the chicken breasts on top. Depending on how hungry you are, you can fix one or two plates. If you fix two plates, divide the rice evenly and cover the second plate with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

Don't forget to soak the chicken pan and the rice bowl in the sink before you start eating.

Suggested beverage: beer

There are a couple variations that you might want to try. Instead of using water, you can use orange juice. Let the meat soak in the pan with the juice in the refrigerator for 1 hour before cooking. You can also put more interesting things in the rice, such as peas, corn, peanuts, or diced carrots.

Chow!