Tomato slow cooked chicken

I am always taking pictures and I can never remember which picture actually make it up and which ones don't. I started this article and stopped so many times I totally forgot which story I was going to share with it.

My background is Hispanic. I am not a pureblood but my mom is from Panama and I grew up for the most part with her family. I spoke Spanish at home for years and my Mami Abuela made sure I knew how to cook. She also tried to teach me how to crochet and sew which is something I did not master until recently. So my version of comfort food is Spanish or Spanish type food. This is my quick toss it in the pan Spanish style chicken served with rice.

This is also considered low budget because I used 2, (3 if a want a ton) chicken breast and feeds about 6 people. 

2 cloves of garlic

2 chicken breast 

1 large onion 

rice 

can of tomato or 3 medium tomatoes 

oregano 

salt and pepper 

parsley 

1 cup of  Chicken broth

Sautee onion and garlic until translucent with seasoning and salt and pepper. Add chicken until browned. Add tomatoes and broth and simmer until liquid is reduced. Make rice and serve.  

This meal came to about $10 ( I forgot how much the chicken breast is going currently) 

which puts it at about $1.70 per person. :) Happy eatings

Rice Balls with a simple brown sauce

I love Asian food and I even love doing my own take. I kept hearing about the rice balls deep fried the you dip them in sauce. Well one day I had nothing to cook and Mr. Man and Hulk were completely losing it so I could not get out and shop. I savaged my cabinets and found some staple items, baby Bok Choy, onions and garlic. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best on this one.

First the rice balls. It was not as tasty as I truly wanted and it really needed something. 

You need cooked rice, eggs, panko, and some seasoning. 

I did salt, pepper, and grated garlic with ginger but you could not taste it. 

I mixed the eggs separately to make sure the yolk and whites was mixed really well then added it to the rice. After words I heated my deep fryer and made little rice balls. Cook until golden brown and heated through. 

Now it is time to get saucy. 

I started with a stir fry oil and sautéed my onions and garlic. Then I added about 1 teaspoon rice vinegar, 1/2 cup soy sauce, a dash maybe 2 of fish sauce and a tablespoon of chicken base stock. I cooked it then chopped up the small amount of bok choy I found in the fridge. 

Place the rice balls in the bowl the pour a small amount of sauce over it. The sauce was amazing but I feel like we really needed more flavor in the rice. Maybe sometime soon we will be posting an update.  But these were still delicious and worth the share. 

Festa bake potato

I love using left overs because it saves money. But this is honestly amazing and I would be willing to cook it just to cook it. The topping would be amazing in Nachos or soup. Since the weather has not really warmed up yet, I have been all about soups and comfort food. Hence the baked potato. Also baked potatoes have a million different ways you can prepare it. Now there is a million and one.
Then again you may want to eat this by the spoonful and not care about the potato.

So for the potato, this will take the longest. I wash my potatoes and toss it with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. I cook it at 375 until I remember I am cooking potatoes it can be anywhere from 30 mins to an hour. Once I completely forgot about the potatoes and made charcoal and only remembered it because of the smoke pouring out of the oven.

About 30 minutes in I start preparing my mixture. I had left over roasted chicken and diced it all up with Soyrizo ( I buy this from Trader Joe's and it is amazing). If you want it to be real meat use chorizo. I blanched some leeks a few weeks ago so I pulled out a handful and tossed that in with onions and garlic. Season with salt and pepper to taste. When everything was warmed up I added about half a brick of cream cheese. If you want to add some cheddar or pepper jack it was just add to the amazingness of this mix.

Now we remember about the potato and start layering it. I start with the cheese because every potato needs cheese no matter what kind of filling is in it.

Then we toss on the mixture. 

Add some sour cream and a touch of seasoned salt with pepper. Now to sever some mouth watering food. 

Simple Harvest Salad

It is spring oh wonderful spring. When all of the vegetables are coming in and then I realize I am in upstate New York where winter ended a few weeks ago. I have greens and that pretty much sums it up. So what should I do with my beautiful greens? 

 So for my greens I used romaine hearts, baby arugula, and kale.  

I tossed it with pea shoots, sunflower seeds, sun dried tomatoes and blue cheese.

 Now for the dressing. Sorry this is not vegan ( Okay blue cheese was the big hint on that one)

My husband and children like cream based dressing. 

Funky Caesar 

1 6oz. plain greek yogurt

1 lemon juiced

1/4 teaspoon grated ginger

1 clove garlic (grated)

salt and pepper

olive oil or sunflower oil ( as needed)

1 teaspoon anchovy paste

Mix everything but oil until well blended. Then slowly add oil until the desired consistency. 

Oh yea this is a funky twist on Cesar dressing. 

It taste yummy and was great for being so simple. 

I would love to pair this with a game type meat and roasted potatoes for a complete meal served with red wine. 

But this worked great as a simple lunch nothing else. My kids even happily ate it. 

Lemon Butter poached Cod dinner

Lemon butter poached Cod pieces, Cilantro garlic, ginger Israeli couscous, severed with sautéed green beans. Sounds like a crazy expensive dinner right? Something you only dream about saying it will be your special treat next time. I made this in under 30 mins it would go faster if everything was prepped ahead of time but some days that is asking for way to much to of me. I bought the french green beans frozen and Cod pieces from Trader Joe's ( Cod was $4 and the green beans $3). I try my best to keep my pantry stocked so I have the garlic ginger and couscous on hand and Somedays I have butter on hand too. 

I started out boiling water then starting my lemon butter poached cod pieces:

           1 lemon

1/2 a stick of butter (4 tablespoons)

1 garlic clove minced

Salt and pepper to taste

I would do just the poaching sauce so I can taste it just to make sure it was perfect  then I dumped in the fish including the liquid that was in the bag. 

In a small container add 1/4 cilantro 

2 cloves garlic grated ginger to taste or about 1/4 teaspoon

dump in the couscous mix. Pour in water put a lid on and set aside. 

(I just eyed my couscous but it is 1 1/4 cup water to 1 cup dried couscous)

I just sautéed the green beans with a a little bit of butter, salt and pepper. 

Test your fish and it is done!!

The crazy part that expensive dinner that would have cost you $20 to eat alone is costing you maybe $10 and can feed 4 easily.