Amy, dry rice cereal doesn't sound too appealing to me... Could you do puffed rice cereal instead? I know our local health food store has puffed quinoa, barley, millet, rice, etc. It can be hard to handle even in that form, so mixing some up in mashed potatoes works well (sounds kind of gross, but if you don't overdo the cereal and put in some spice it tastes pretty good and has a nice texture...)
Ruth, chicken is an easy meat to deal with but if you're nervous about it, why not try fish? White fish, like talapia, in packets with some thin sticks of veggies with some olive oil and spice (and orange slices for flavour- mmmm!) are really easy to prep and you can freeze the left overs for later. And the fish breaks apart really easy. Chicken can be a bit harder to chew/gum at the beginning in my experience, unless you go for ground chicken which is super easy to form into patties and fry up on the stove and freeze to keep on hand.