Spanish Chicken and Beans with Peppers

I love Goya Adobo seasoning.  While I'm not always big on pre-made seasonings, Adobo really is one of my favorites.  It reminds me of when I was in college, and my girlfriends and I would make these huge spaghetti pots of Spanish rice with beans, corn, peppers, and those weird little hot dogs all sliced up (it sounds gross, but oh mama, is that rice amazing) with hot sauce dumped all over it.  Seriously, thinking of that rice makes me salivate--and miss my college friends.

While this isn't the same recipe of my college years (oh yes, I will definitely be sharing that one soon), this recipe is just as good, and much, much quicker to make.  Also, I daresay this recipe is a bit healthier, as there is minimal fat, is packed with fiber, veggies, and protein.  Give this recipe a try.  It's one of the quickest, most flavorful meals you will ever make.  The best part?  If your family doesn't lick their plates and inhale everything you made, the leftovers taste even better the next day.

CaraCakes Spanish Chicken and Beans with Peppers

You'll need:

• 1 lb chicken breast  (I pound mine 1/2 in thick, and cut it into cubes with scissors)
• 2Tb Goya Adobo Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp paprika (you can add more if you like it spicy- I'm the only one in my house who likes spicy food, so I just add more to mine)
• 1/2 vidalia onion, diced
• 1/2 red pepper, diced
• 1 can black beans, rinsed
• 1 cup chicken broth, or 1 cup water with 1 chicken boullion cube
• Brown Rice (I used 10 minute Success Precooked Whole Grain Brown Rice)

Instructions:

• Heat a large skillet to medium heat.
• Pour 2Tb olive oil into the pan.
• Once the oil is heated (you can flick water into the pan to check.  If it sizzles, the pan is hot.), add the onions.
• When the onions are clear, add the red pepper.  Cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.  If the onions or peppers start to stick to the bottom of the pan, add a tablespoon or two of water and scrape the onions and peppers from the bottom of the pan.
• Boil water, and cook rice according to instructions.
• Add the chicken, cayenne pepper, paprika, black beans, and broth to the pan with the onions and peppers.
• Cook for ten minutes, or until the chicken is fully cooked and the sauce has reduced (it will look less like soup and will have thickened a bit.)
• Serve over rice.
• Enjoy!

Fajitas!!

We are big time Mexican food lovers in our house, so when I got the email from the Food Revolution to try this recipe, I went for it.  I paired it with some golden Spanish rice.

This took about ten minutes to make, and froze/reheated really well.  Give it a go!

Fajitas

Ingredients for the fajitas:

• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 medium red onion
• 8 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast fillets
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• A small pinch of ground cumin
• 2 limes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/16 teaspoon sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2 x 8-inch flour tortillas
• ½ cup plain yogurt
• 2 ounces Cheddar cheese

For the salsa:

• ½–1 fresh red chile, to your taste
• 15 ripe grape or cherry tomatoes
• about ½ cup a small bunch of fresh cilantro
• 1/16 teaspoon sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 lime

For the guacamole:

• a small handful of cherry tomatoes- about ¼ cup
• ½-1 fresh red chile
• a few sprigs of fresh cilantro
• ½ ripe avocado
• 1 lime

Jamie's Tips:
•This is a great meal to prepare ahead, like a stir-fry – the trick is to prepare all your ingredients before you start cooking because once you start things go pretty fast!
•Make sure your grill pan is nice and hot before you start cooking so that the chicken starts sizzling and grilling as soon as it hits the pan.

•The trick to sizzling hot, golden brown chicken and veggies is to not overcrowd the pan. If you’re making this for 4, just double the ingredients but cook them in two pans or in batches.

•You can make the guacamole a little bit ahead of time – to keep it nice and fresh, press a piece of plastic wrap right onto the surface of the guacamole – this will keep it from turning brown.

Method:

•Put your grill pan on a high heat. Halve and seed your bell pepper and cut it into thin strips. Peel, halve, and finely slice your onion. Slice your chicken lengthways into long strips roughly the same size as your bell pepper strips.
•Put the bell peppers, onion, and chicken into a bowl with the paprika and cumin. Squeeze over the juice of half a lime, drizzle over a lug of olive oil, season with the salt and pepper and mix well. Put to one side to marinate for 5 minutes or so while you make your salsa.

•Finely chop your chile. Roughly chop your tomatoes and the cilantro, stalks and all.

•Put the chile and tomatoes into a second bowl with the salt and pepper and the juice of 1 lime. Then stir in your chopped cilantro.

•Use a pair of tongs to put all the pieces of bell pepper, onion, and chicken into your preheated pan to cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until the chicken is golden and cooked through. As the pan will be really hot, keep turning the pieces of chicken and vegetables over so they don’t burn – you just want them to lightly chargrill to give you a lovely flavor. Give the pan a little love and attention and you'll be laughing.

•To make the guacamole squeeze a handful of cherry tomatoes on to a board. Finely chop up the flesh with ½ -1 red chile and a handful of cilantro leaves, including the top part of the stalks.

•Halve the avocado, leaving the side with the pit for another use. Then squeeze the one side of the avocado over a board so the flesh comes out of the skin. Discard the skin. Squeeze over the juice of 1 lime and chop everything together until fine. Taste and adjust the flavors if needed.

•Warm your tortillas up in a microwave or a warm dry frying pan. Divide your warmed tortillas between your serving plates.

•At the table, carefully help yourselves to the chicken and vegetables straight from the hot grill pan. Just be sure to put it down on top of something that won’t burn, like a chopping board.

•Halve your remaining lime and squeeze the juices over the sizzling pan. Serve with bowls of plain yogurt and guacamole alongside your Cheddar, a grater, and your lovely fresh salsa.


Spanish Rice:
This is one of my favorite dishes.  Follow the instructions on the box/bag.  Add 2 packets of Goya Sazon seasoning, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, a small pinch of paprika, and salt and pepper to taste.  You can add kidney beans, black beans and/or olives if you'd like.  I chose not to this time because I felt that a nice simple rice was the perfect addition to the fajitas!

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

Ricotta and Peppers Stuffed Chicken with Pasta

After a long day of playing at the park, going to the children's museum, and running errands, Laela and I were STARVING!  I needed to make something quick, filling, and packed with healthy goodness.  This stuffed chicken was just the trick!

I try to make it a habit of having cleaned chicken cut in different forms in my freezer (pounded flat, left whole with the fat cut off, cut into nuggets- you get the idea).  I grabbed a flattened one that I'd defrosted, and instead of doing the normal method that I use when stuffing a chicken breast (using a long skinny knife and cutting a hole in it), I decided I was going to roll the chicken around the stuffing and cook it with a bit of broth to steam it.  (This results in a deliciously juicy chicken, regardless of whether or not you are stuffing it.)

Stuffed Chicken:
Ingredients:

• 1 large chicken breast, pounded flat (don't pound it so much that there are holes!)
• 4 oz frozen spinach- defrosted and drained
• 1 roasted red pepper, chopped (I always have a jar of these in my fridge)
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1 roasted artichoke, chopped (I always have these in a jar in my fridge) 
• 4 oz ricotta cheese
• 1 package whole grain pasta (I like Barilla Plus angel hair)
• 1 small handful of parmesan cheese
• 4-5 large basil leaves, chopped
• 1 cup chicken broth (you can use boullion if you don't have broth)
• 2tsp garlic

Instructions:

• Lightly oil a skillet, and heat to medium heat.
• In a medium sized bowl, mix 3oz of the ricotta cheese, 3oz of spinach, roasted red pepper, 1tsp garlic,  roasted artichoke, salt and pepper.
• Spread the mixture across the flattened chicken.
• Roll the chicken (much like rolling a pumpkin roll).  If it won't stay in place, use butcher's tine, metal poultry picks, or tooth picks.
• Place the chicken in the skillet.
• Cook for one minute.
• Add the broth.
• Place a lid on the pan.
• Leave the chicken cooking in the skillet for 6 minutes.
• While the chicken is cooking, heat another skillet to medium heat and pour in a tablespoon of olive oil.
• Add the remainder of the spinach, the chopped red and green peppers, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, basil leaves, 1tsp garlic and a dash of salt and pepper to the hot skillet.
• Stir while cooking to mix the ingredients well.
• Flip your chicken.
• Cook for 3-5 more minutes.
• While the chicken is finishing, boil the pasta in well salted water.
• When the pasta is done, toss it in the cheese-veggie sauce.
• Top with finished chicken and enjoy!

Pop in for Some Peppers Soup!

A while back, I had mentioned that I was going to start trying to work with what is already in my fridge, rather than run to the store every time I wanted to make dinner.  Part of the reason for this is to see what I can do at the end of the grocery week, and part of it is because I feel like sometimes trying new things with what's in the fridge can break me out of a food rut.

I've been in the mood for some hearty, soothing soups lately, so I decided to bust out some frozen mixed peppers that I had in the freezer and make a delicious pepper soup garnished with roasted potatoes.

Roasted Red, Green and Yellow Pepper Soup

Ingredients:

- Approx. 1 cup frozen mixed peppers (or one heaping handful)

- 2Tb Garlic (chopped)

- 1 small sweet onion, chopped.

- 3Tb butter

- 3Tb flour

- 2 cups chicken, vegetable, or beef stock (or 2 cups water with appropriate amount of boullion)

- 2 carrots, chopped.

- 2 celery stalks, chopped.

- 1 cup tomato sauce (you can use my super easy pasta sauce recipe if you want home made)

- Salt and Pepper to taste

- Dash of Nutmeg

- Dash of Cinnamon

- Olive Oil

Instructions:

• In a medium saucepan, boil stock.
• While the stock is boiling, put a large saucepan on high heat.  Whisk butter and flour until it forms a paste.
• Whisk in the stock, the pasta sauce, and add 1Tb garlic, the salt and pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
• Lower the heat to medium heat.
• Heat a large skillet to medium high heat.
• Pour a few glugs of olive oil into the hot skillet.
• For 5- 8 minutes, fry up the carrots and celery until fork tender.
• When fully cooked, put the carrots and celery into the food processor or blender.  (KEEP THE SKILLET HOT!)
• Add the peppers, onions, and garlic to the hot skillet. 
• Once the peppers, onions and garlic start to smell really aromatic and great, and look like they're losing liquid (sweating), pour the mixture into a blender or food processor and puree with the carrots and celery.
• Whisk the puree into the cooking soup. 
• Lower the heat to medium low heat.
• Cook for at least twenty minutes.  This is one of those recipes that will taste great straightaway, but will also taste amazing the longer it cooks, or the next day as leftovers.

For the Garnish:

Ingredients:

- 3 or 4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes

- 2 Sprigs Rosemary

- 2 Sprigs Thyme

- Salt and Pepper to taste

- Onion Powder

- Garlic Powder

- Olive Oil

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 350- degrees.
• Wash and chop your potatoes.
• Put your potatoes in a 3 inch deep baking dish.
• Add all of the seasonings, and a drizzle of oil.
• Mix together with your hands or tongs.
• Bake for 20 minutes
• Top your soup with it and enjoy!

*This soup freezes well for 6 months in a regular freezer and 1 year for a deep freeze.  I put it in individual sized containers so that it defrosts quickly and is easy for Kyle to bring for lunch.

My family realy enjoyed this soup!  And to top it off, when Kyle and I talked about it, it cost less than $5 to make!  (and there was enough for him to bring to work for lunch and for me to feed the baby for 4 days!)  Maybe it's crazy to try to make everything in the fridge before I grocery shop next (besides for milk and eggs), but it is kind of fun to see that it is possible to make really good food with what we have, and to know that we're not wasting anything.  Isn't there enough waste in the world?  And enough people that don't have enough, that we should try to use what we've got before accumulating more?  Just a thought.

For the weekend, I'll be sharing a deliciously bad for you fried dinner that I made Kyle when he was a bit hungover.  Next stop...fried green beans and homemade chicken nuggets.

Lemony Bombay Potatoes

I don't know about you, but we eat a lot of potatoes in our house.  After a while, I start to get bored, and want to try something different.  I figured since Bombay Chicken is one of my favorite foods, I'd try just making the vegetables in the recipe and see what happened. 

For this recipe, I used purple and Yukon Gold potaoes.  You really can use any kind you like (although I prefer not to use Russet for this kind of cooking, since I like to leave the skins on).  I had found these purple potatoes at our local farm (http://www.mapleacresfarmmarket.com/) and thought it'd be fun to try some recipes with them.  They're incredibly smooth and soak up flavor like nobody's business.  Try them in mashed potatoes and I promise, you'll be pleasantly surprised!  Plus, how often do you get to put purple food on your plate?!

Bombay Potatoes

Ingredients:

(1) Lemon

(2) Medium Yukon Gold Potatoes

(2) Medium Purple Potatoes

1 inch piece of ginger (peeled)

5 sprigs fresh coriander (cilantro)

(1) Red Pepper

(1) Green Pepper

(1/2) Vidalia Onion

1 tsp cumin

Tumeric

Dash of salt and pepper

Olive Oil

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Wash and chop your potatoes.  Keep in mind that the more evenly you chop your potatoes, the more evenly they'll cook.  Put them in a medium sized baking pan (I used my corningware, but you can use a baking tray or a medium cake pan if you don't have one).  Zest your lemon over the potatoes.  Squeeze the lemon over the potatoes, being sure to not get any seeds on them.  Then slice your lemon into six slices and add them to the mix.  Sprinkle Olive Oil over the potatoes.  Chop the cilantro (you can make this easier by using scissors) and add it to the potatoes.  Add the remainder of the spices.  Dice the peppers and onion.  Add the peppers and onion to the pan, mix up the ingredients, and bake the dish off with a lid on for 30 minutes. 

If your potatoes seem to be a bit dry while they're cooking, add a bit of chicken or vegetable stock to the pan, and give it a few minutes to reduce the juices.



We ate this with some whole wheat couscous and it was delicious!  It's also even yummier the day after!