Kraft Recipe Makers Meal Kit – Three Cheese Chicken Florentine #kraftrecipemakers #shop

I was recently given the opportunity to try out and cook with Kraft Recipe Makers.

 I am going to be honest… right now my life has been turned upside down now that we have brought home our Asher and completed our adoption.  Before our adoption, I cooked every single night and usually cooked from scratch.  Now that we have a very busy 11 month old and I’m using all free time to work on Addicted to Saving, this tired momma cooks very little for herself.  (I do make lots of homemade baby food for our baby boy.  He is definitely eating the best out of all of us!)  I’m constantly looking for easy meals that will be flavorful and different from typical pre-packaged meals.  I knew that Kraft Recipe Makers is a meal kit  that makes cooking much easier and quicker and so I wanted to try it out for myself!

Kraft Recipe Makers  is found in Walmart’s pasta aisle. (To learn more about Kraft’s products, make sure you “like” their Facebook page)  Not all Walmart locations carry Kraft Recipe Makers, but if your Walmart sells meat, you should find Kraft Recipe Makers at your store! My local store sold 9 different variations of Kraft Recipe Makers.  Go HERE to see my shopping trip in pictures in Addicted to Saving’s Google+ Album I eagerly took the Three Cheese Chicken Florentine off the shelf to try it out.  We love pasta and chicken in our house.  And, I was so excited to see that the recipe for Three Cheese Chicken Florentine called for fresh spinach.  Any recipe that calls for spinach (especially pasta recipes) is a winner in my book!

Each box of Kraft Recipe Makers includes 2 cooking sauces in the box.  You will need to purchase the “extras” needed for the recipe like the meat and any fresh produce or cheese that is needed. Besides buying the Three Cheese Chicken Florentine, I had to purchase fresh baby spinach, shredded mozzarella cheese and boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

It did not take long for me to make this meal.  In fact, I made it during Asher’s morning nap.  I was curious if I would be able to prepare, make and then clean up the meal while he slept.  Since he had a great nap the morning I made this, I was able to get all three steps completed before he even woke up.  Success!

The steps to this meal are quite easy!  First, you need to preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray your baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.  The recipe calls for a 13×9 baking dish although I used a deep 9×9 dish and that worked perfectly.  After you preheat your oven, you will want to cook three cups of pasta.  One tip I have for you is to use a large saucepan for your pasta – perhaps even larger than you would normally use.  (You will see below what I mean.)

As you have your water boiling and your pasta is cooking, you will need to cook your diced chicken in a skillet.  The recipe on the box doesn’t have you adding any seasoning to the chicken.  I cooked the chicken in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil although the recipe on the box has you spraying your skillet with cooking spray.

Once your chicken is cooked, add the Garlic Tomato Simmer Sauce to the chicken and stir. Heat through for about 2 – 3 minutes.

Once your pasta is cooked, drain it and return it to your saucepan.  You will then want to add 1 package of fresh baby spinach to the saucepan as well as the Creamy Three Cheese Baking Sauce to your saucepan.  Mix lightly so that everything is evenly distributed.  You can see from my picture that my saucepan was filled to the brim.  I had a really tricky time mixing the sauce, spinach and cooked pasta together. So I highly recommend you use a larger saucepan than normal to make it easier for you to mix.

Once your pasta, spinach and sauce is mixed, pour it into your baking dish.  On top of the pasta, add the chicken and sauce from your skillet.  Top the dish with shredded mozzarella.  The recipe on the box calls for ½ cup of shredded cheese.  I’m not going to lie, I used at least a cup and a half of shredded cheese.  We love our cheese in this house!

Place the baking dish into your preheated oven and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until your dish is heated through.

I served my dish with steamed zucchini. I topped the zucchini with Italian herbs and they were the perfect accompaniment to our dinner. I had family over my house and was able to serve everyone this dish.  Everyone was very pleased with the flavor as well as with the appearance of the dish. And, they had seconds which tells me my meal was a success!

If you asked me if I would make this again, I most definitely would. Using Kraft Recipe Makers took out all of the work behind seasoning my dish and making my sauces.  While I did have to do a bit of prepwork cutting up and then cooking the chicken and boiling the pasta, that was really all I had to do.  Everything else consisted of mixing the ingredients together and then baking.  It was really easy to make and came out so flavorful!