Arroz Con Pollo (Mexican Chicken & Rice)

This is a recipe I have wanted to try for a very long time, but all the versions I found included some spice mixes that are not available outside of USA (typical haha!) so I was keeping my eyes peeled for one I could make without them.

Cue my friend Fien, whose house I was at last week.  We were thinking about what to have for dinner, and looking through cookbooks to find something because her partner is gluten-free so obviously had to be something he could eat.  Then I saw this and was like "let's make this!  I've always wanted to try it!".  

So all our good intentions were there.  And then, just after the slowcooker was turned on and we just sat down to start watching a movie... powercut.  -_-  Less than ideal.  By the time it was eventually turned back on, it was almost 8pm, and dinner would need a further 2 or 3 hours to cook! By which stage, we had given up and got pizza.

The dish however, did keep cooking, and when it was done, was put into leftover containers, for Fien and Hamlin to eat the following night, and they said it was delicious.  So tonight, I made it at my house too!

INGREDIENTS
1 chicken (3-4lb/1kg ish) cut into serving pieces or 6 chicken pieces of your choice (I used chicken breast cut into large cubes)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red capsicum, diced
1 tablsepoon paprika
1 tablespoon chilli powder (or less - it is very strong!)
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock (gluten-free if you're intolerant)
1 bay leaf
1 cup uncooked long grain rice
1 cup peas
salt and pepper

METHOD

• Put tomatoes, wine, stock and bayleaf in slow cooker
• Brown chicken (but don't cook all the way through) and add to slow cooker
• Heat oil in a pan
• Add onion, garlic, and capsicum
• Cook 3 min
• Reduce heat to low and stir in paprika, chilli powder, cumin, and oregano
• Cook 1 min, stirring constantly
• Scrape mixture into slowcooker and stir well
• Cook on LOW for 4-6 hours, or HIGH 2-3 hours, or until chicken is almost cooked through.
• An hour before it finishes, cook rice in a pan and some oil, until it goes opaque (maybe 3 or 4 minutes), stirring often
• Pour rice into slowcooker and raise heat to HIGH if cooking on LOW
• 15 minutes before end, add peas
• Salt and pepper to taste, and serve hot

 
 To be honest, while it was nice, it didn't taste as strongly or flavourfully as the smell of it cooking.  It was spicy, and I even skimped on the chilli, so you don't need much chilli to get a kick.  It was filling, but the chicken was a little dry, so in future I may either add more stock, or use bigger pieces of chicken.

Recipe: in "Gluten-Free Slow Cooking" by Ellen Brown, pg. 133

Satay Chicken

Most of the time, I follow the recipes I find.  But sometimes, I find several recipes, and then use bits from all of them!  This is what I did tonight, and it turned out well.  Felt like satay chicken but didn't have a jar of the sauce I normally use, so decided to try to make it from scratch. 

INGREDIENTS
500g chicken breast, sliced
1 onion, sliced
peas 
1 pack vermicelli
1 can of coconut milk (or cream)
3 tbsp peanut butter
sweet chilli sauce (to taste)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 or 3 tbsp of sugar
1/2 cup water
salt (to taste)
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp crushed ginger

METHOD

• Set some salted water to boil, for the vermicelli.  Once it boils, add the vermicelli then turn off the heat.
• Meanwhile, brown chicken and onion in oil, in a fry pan
• Add ginger and garlic, cook for 2 min
• Add coconut cream, peanut butter, chilli sauce, soy sauce, sugar, white vinegar, and salt
• Stir and bring to a simmer
• Reduce heat and simmer until thickens
• Add peas and cook until tender
• Serve on drained vermicelli noodles, or rice

So this was kind of an ad-libbed recipe, but it tasted good, and photographed terribly.  I think I'll make it again in future, but on rice.

 

Banana Sultana Loaf

Trying my best to do more new recipes now that uni is not so demanding!  Here is one I did today.  I picked it out of one of my mum's old recipe books, because we had some manky looking (aka very ripe!) bananas to use up, and I didn't feel like making icing for a cake, or muffins, and we didn't have any oats to make my usual banana oatmeal muffins!

One problem I had with this recipe is that it was all in weight measurements, as opposed to cups and tablespoons/teaspoons and that was a bit of a pain.  Luckily we had scales :)

INGREDIENTS
90g butter
1 large egg
1/4 tsp baking soda
60g sultanas
125g sugar
220g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 ripe bananas

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C
• Cream butter and sugar
• Add egg and mix well
• Add in sifted dry ingredients
• Add in mashed bananas and sultanas
• Pour into a greased (or silicone) loaf tin
• Bake for 50 mins
• Serve warm with butter

 This was a pretty easy recipe, aside from all the measurements!  Came out a bit dry, then realised it was in a part of the recipe book that said it was part of the 'buttered sweet' section haha so best to serve it with butter!!  It tastes great too! :)

Recipe Inspiration: Rally Cookbook

Crustless Quiche

Thought I'd better get a recipe in before October is over!  Gotta have at least one entry per month! ;) No, actually this month has been insane with uni work, haven't had time to try anything new (much) or write about it.

But now I'm on study leave, which gives me a little flexibility to do stuff like this, so here is today's lunch! 

INGREDIENTS
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup self raising flour

Before being cooked

salt and pepper

1/2 cup cheese (grated)
1 fried onion
Ham or cooked bacon
Veges - I used grated carrot and seasonal asparagus

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C
• Whisk eggs, milk, flour and seasoning together
• Add everything else to the mix
• Spread in a silicone quiche/flan dish (silicone makes it so much easier to remove at the end)
• Bake for 45 mins, until gold on top and puffed up
• Let sit for a couple of minutes (to make it even easier to remove from silicone)
• Cut up and serve hot, or cold, with relish and sour cream (optional, but delicious)

So this was a super easy recipe to make, and my mum loved it.  I'm not a super egg fan myself (as I probably said when I wrote about the crustless broccoli quiches I made back when I began this blog!) but it was pretty nice.  Would be great for lunches too.

Shout out to Jeremy, one of my best friends, who I've known since we were 7.  This was his recipe/idea.


Recipe Inspiration: http://www.grownups.co.nz/read/lifestyle/food_and_wine/crustless-quiche-recipie

Apricot Chicken

Found via pinterest many moons ago, when I couldn't eat much, but was dreaming and researching and stalking photos of food, this is a recipe that has been sitting in my "to try" pile for a while (rhyme not intended).

The original recipe called for fresh apricots and vinegar and sugar, but I didn't have any fresh apricots - out of season, so it gave an alternative using apricot jam and dried apricots.  So that's how I'll write this recipe, with how I did it! :)

INGREDIENTS
12 dried, pitted apricots (I used a bakers dozen just in case), diced finely
1/2 cup apricot jam

1kg skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
Salt
Cooking oil
1 diced onion
2 cups chicken stock or broth
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons sweet chilli sauce (or Tobasco sauce, or other hot sauce like the recipe suggests)
Black pepper

METHOD

• Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat
• Cook the chicken until browned, sprinkling salt over while it cooks
• Remove from pan and set aside
• Add more oil to pan if necessary
• Saute onions until brown
• Add chicken stock, chopped apricots and jam
• Lower the heat to medium
• Add cinnamon, rosemary, and chilli sauce
• Taste and season accordingly with salt
• Bring to a simmer then lower the heat
• Gently simmer for 10-20 minutes
• Return chicken to sauce
• Simmer gently for 5 minutes
• Serve while hot, with rice

I wasn't sure about this recipe.  It sounded nice, but once I started making it, the cinnamon just looked and smelled weird.  Cinnamon doesn't usually go in savoury things as far as I knew.

But you know what, it was AMAZING.  Well, so said my parents, my friend and my Dad's friend who were there.  It actually tasted way better than it smelled.  It was quite spicy, and not sweet like I expected.  I also really liked the fact that most of the stuff in the recipe are things you ordinarily have in a pantry.

One thing I would change would be the amount of vegetables.  Or lack thereof.  I'm just not sure which veges would go with it.  Maybe some capsicum (bell pepper).  I'll try that next time!


Recipe Inspiration: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apricot_chicken/?amp%3Butm_campaign=Feed%253A+elise%252Fsimplyrecipes+%2528Simply+Recipes%2529&amp%3Butm_medium=feed

Homemade Hummus

Recently, I spent the weekend down in Christchurch/Timaru for my cousins engagement party, which was a lot of fun.  While I was there, my other cousin, who is very healthy and inspirational in her dedication to exercise (most unlike me... perhaps that doesn't run in the family haha), and I got talking about food, and cooking and such.

The topic of healthy snacks came up, and I'm trying to be healthier at the moment for various reasons.  We talked about hummus, and how it was a great snack, with crackers, and carrot sticks, and other vegetables in stick form.  I complained that hummus is sooooooooo expensive and my parents (who I still live with) would never buy it regularly in the groceries because it is a "luxury good".

Then she goes "why don't you make some?".  LIGHT-BULB MOMENT! We already had some dried chickpeas at home from the bulk bins (MILES cheaper than the canned ones in brine), and all I needed was tahini paste (sesame seed paste stuff).  Everything else we pretty much had already!  Including a food processor that isn't used much... so yay!  A use for it!

INGREDIENTS
1 cup dried chickpeas (makes [supposedly] 2 cups of hydrated chickpeas)
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice (or less, to taste)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed (or about 1/2 tsp pre-crushed garlic)
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (although go lightly on this actually... it's stronger than I thought!)
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup of water
parsley and olive oil to garnish


METHOD

• Soak chickpeas in lots of water in a large jug/bowl overnight, changing the water once or twice if you can
• Drain, then bring chickpeas to boil in a large pot with lots of water and a dash of salt
• Simmer for 30 mins
• Drain and let them cool, but try to make the hummus while they are still warm - apparently it blends better :)
• Put all the ingredients into the food processor (or blender) except chickpeas, oil and parsley
• Pulse/blend for approx 5 seconds to mix
• Add chickpeas
• Blend until it is the consistency you want - people usually go for a 'sour cream' thickness
• Taste and season accordingly
• Transfer to a serving bowl
• Chill in the fridge for a few hours/overnight
• Eat!

 So with this recipe, I learned about cayenne pepper.  And how much NOT to put in haha.  It came out very spicy.  Mum and Dad liked it a lot, so they ate it, and I also pawned some off to my friend... I hope she liked it... I haven't heard from her though... oh dear.  Sophie I'm sorry if the spicyness was too much, but I did write the warning in the status on FB asking if anyone wanted some really spicy hummus! ;)

I'm definitely making it again, cos it's relatively simple, and dried chickpeas from the bulk bins are really cheap... definitely cheaper than buying ready made stuff.  The only other cost was the tahini paste, but now that I spent NZ$8 on the jar, it'll last many hummus' to come.  :)

I'm really looking forward to playing with flavours.  I know they do pumpkin and kumara (sweet potato for non-NZ followers) from the brand I like, so I might try recreating it!  Watch this space!

ALSO: This recipe makes A LOT.  Great for if you're having a party.  If I was to make it again, I'd halve all the measurements.

Recipe Inspiration:  http://greekfood.about.com/od/appetizerssalads/r/hummustahini.htm

Homemade Lemonade

Now here's something I haven't done before; making a drink on my foodie blog!  The neighbour (who is never home, only comes home once every now and then to mow the lawns) has a massive lemon tree, which is laden with fruit.  A LOT of fruit.  And I want to use it.  We also have our own, smaller, tree.  I used a mixture of lemons from both.

Normally we can take lemons down to a local place who give us cordial, lemon curd and such in return, but this time I want to make something with it.  Right now I already have a  Lemon Yoghurt Loaf in the oven, sans blueberries, using up some lemon.  But I still had tonnes left over.

I always saw the stereotypical little lemonade stand selling cups of lemonade for 50c in movies and things, and wondered, surely it must be easy to make the stuff?  So I did!

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup if you don't want it as sweet)
1 cup water (for sugar syrup)
1 cup lemon juice
3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)

METHOD

• Combine sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan
• Stir over medium high heat until sugar dissolves
• Set aside to cool
• Juice the lemons (between 4 and 6 to make 1 cup of juice)
• Combine lemons with cooled sugar syrup
• Pour into a juice jug (or whatever you want to use)
• Add the extra water to dilute
• Chill (the juice AND you, cos you're done!)

See what I mean?!  So freaking easy.  I have learned one thing though.  It's REALLY hard to take a nice photo of a drink.

As for taste, well I added only 3 cups water to dilute, and it was super strong.  But really, really, REALLY nice.  I love it.  I can't wait to make more of it for summer! :D

Recipe Inspiration : http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_lemonade/