Recipe: Chicken and rice in a pot
I remember, when I worked at Chamberlin's, I used to cook marvelous and complicated things all the time, and I thought "when I quit working at Chamberlin's I will make even MORE marvelous and complicated things!"
Haha. Turns out when you don't have to go spend 30 hours a week breaking your writing groove to look at food, sell food, count food so more food can be ordered, and talk to people about food (well, also vitamins, but who cared about that part compared to the FOOD), and you can just burrow into a writing cave instead, you don't want to make more marvelous complicated food, but less! So it's always good when I can figure out a way to condense a marvelous and complicated meal into a simple one.
In this case, it was a favorite meal my mom used to make once in awhile: baked chicken, rice, gravy, and some kind of veggies, topped at the end with grated asiago. It was four different things when she made it, but now I can create a similar dining experience in one pot with this risotto-esque thing.
--Preheat oven to 350
--Heat dutch oven or other large oven-safe pot on the stovetop and add your cooking fat of choice (in my case it's bacon grease, that's how the hip foodies do it now, yo)
--Meanwhile, finely chop veggies of choice. I did 1 onion, 1 package mushrooms, 1 orange pepper, and a handful of dried shiitakes (soaked in hot water for a few minutes), but you could probably throw in squash or carrots or celery or whatever the heck you wanted. Saute them until they soften in the oil/fat.
--Trim the fat off 1 lb. skinless boneless chicken thighs (or breasts, but thighs are more flavorful) and cut into small pieces (use kitchen scissors, so much easier) and saute them a bit with the other stuff
--Your work is almost done! Add 1 c. brown rice, saute for a sec, and then 2 1/2 c. broth or stock (you can also add more rice/stock, just keep the same ratios), some salt to taste, and maybe some chopped garlic if you feel like it, put the lid on the pot, stick it in the oven for 75 minutes and go work on your WIP.
--You can check on it somewhere in the middle of the cooking to make sure it doesn't need more liquid, if you think of it. Or if you want to add any greens, put them in around the hour mark.
--When it's done, toss in about half of one of those tubs of shredded asiago (they're so cheap at Aldi!) or romano if you can't find asiago (you can probably find asiago everywhere now, right? sometimes I recall my childhood when my grandfather would buy a big block of it at the Italian market and parcel it out to all of his children so we were not WITHOUT ASIAGO...that asiago always seems like it was better tasting than the stuff I buy now, too, but ah well...), and stir it in there and add some fresh cracked pepper.
There ya go. Cheap, easy, less than 30 minutes in the kitchen for both prep and cleanup even allowing for some zoning out while you chop peppers. Probably even delicious vegetarian, just leave out the chicken and make it with mushrooms and butternut squash or something.
Haha. Turns out when you don't have to go spend 30 hours a week breaking your writing groove to look at food, sell food, count food so more food can be ordered, and talk to people about food (well, also vitamins, but who cared about that part compared to the FOOD), and you can just burrow into a writing cave instead, you don't want to make more marvelous complicated food, but less! So it's always good when I can figure out a way to condense a marvelous and complicated meal into a simple one.
In this case, it was a favorite meal my mom used to make once in awhile: baked chicken, rice, gravy, and some kind of veggies, topped at the end with grated asiago. It was four different things when she made it, but now I can create a similar dining experience in one pot with this risotto-esque thing.
--Preheat oven to 350
--Heat dutch oven or other large oven-safe pot on the stovetop and add your cooking fat of choice (in my case it's bacon grease, that's how the hip foodies do it now, yo)
--Meanwhile, finely chop veggies of choice. I did 1 onion, 1 package mushrooms, 1 orange pepper, and a handful of dried shiitakes (soaked in hot water for a few minutes), but you could probably throw in squash or carrots or celery or whatever the heck you wanted. Saute them until they soften in the oil/fat.
--Trim the fat off 1 lb. skinless boneless chicken thighs (or breasts, but thighs are more flavorful) and cut into small pieces (use kitchen scissors, so much easier) and saute them a bit with the other stuff
--Your work is almost done! Add 1 c. brown rice, saute for a sec, and then 2 1/2 c. broth or stock (you can also add more rice/stock, just keep the same ratios), some salt to taste, and maybe some chopped garlic if you feel like it, put the lid on the pot, stick it in the oven for 75 minutes and go work on your WIP.
--You can check on it somewhere in the middle of the cooking to make sure it doesn't need more liquid, if you think of it. Or if you want to add any greens, put them in around the hour mark.
--When it's done, toss in about half of one of those tubs of shredded asiago (they're so cheap at Aldi!) or romano if you can't find asiago (you can probably find asiago everywhere now, right? sometimes I recall my childhood when my grandfather would buy a big block of it at the Italian market and parcel it out to all of his children so we were not WITHOUT ASIAGO...that asiago always seems like it was better tasting than the stuff I buy now, too, but ah well...), and stir it in there and add some fresh cracked pepper.
There ya go. Cheap, easy, less than 30 minutes in the kitchen for both prep and cleanup even allowing for some zoning out while you chop peppers. Probably even delicious vegetarian, just leave out the chicken and make it with mushrooms and butternut squash or something.