Pie Maker: My Latest Toy!

Little Apple Pie

If you like to cook and anyone knows about it, you probably had the fun of receiving some kind of kitchen gadget from thoughtful family members and/or friends!  I don't buy gadgets that much for myself, but when I receive one as a gift, I LOVE it and really enjoy trying them out!  I went many years without a food processor, but Christmas 2011 Ben gave me a super one and I use it all the time now.  I can't believe I didn't think I needed one for so long!  

Anyway, this year, Marie and Miles gave me the cutest Breville little pie maker!!  I couldn't wait to try it out, and it is so much fun and makes very tasty pies!

It seems to me that little, hand-held pies are always popular.  Somehow, things always taste better when they come in a cute (did I already say that?), neat, little package, don't you think?  "Filled" anything just seems like more fun to eat!  Also, little pies are a great way to use up leftovers in a very delicious way!  

I'm including two recipes here.  One for the pastry (quick in a food processor!), and one for the super easy apple pie filling.  These apple pies are really easy even if you start from scratch for the filling.  I just mix stuff together and microwave it for a quick, but homemade, filling.  The other pies were made from the leftovers of a pot roast dinner: super tender beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy-- not really a recipe, but they were yummy--kind of English-- perfect for watching the first episode of Season Three of Downton Abbey!  Are you into that?  Oh-- I digress.........

As far as the crust goes, you can make your own in a food processor so quickly (new discovery for me-- can you believe it?) !  You can also use the Pillbury crusts, which will work fine.  I've always used a really old recipe for my crusts, but I've adapted it now for use in the food processor.  It always works great, even though it might seem a little unconventional!  

If you don't have a little pie maker (is your birthday coming up?), you can cut the crusts into rectangles or circles and just fold them over to enclose the filling.  Seal them well with the tines of a fork.  It doesn't matter how big or little you make them, just do what you want!  In a regular oven, I bake them at 425F for about 20 minutes, until golden brown and crusty.  Delicious and, did I mention?-- so cute! :)

Pie Pastry in the food processor (for a two crust pie, or to make about 8 hand-held pies)

3 cups flour

1 cup shortening (like Crisco), cut into pieces for savory pies OR

12 Tbl. shortening and 4 Tbl. butter (all cut into pieces) for sweet pies (make sure it's cold)

1 tsp. salt

6 Tbl. (or so) of ice water

Blend the flour and salt together in the processor work bowl.  Take out 1/2 cup of the flour-salt mixture and blend it with a fork with the water.  It should be fairly runny, but not watery.  Set that aside.

Add the shortening or shortening plus butter to the work bowl and blend until it resembles crumbs. This just takes a few pulses, like maybe 10.

Take the top off the work bowl and add the flour-water mixture.  Be sure to add all of it.  Replace the top and pulse the mixture until it clumps up into a mass.  Don't over process!  Pour it out onto a piece of Saran wrap and smoosh it together into a disk.  You now have pie dough!  Roll it out on a flour dusted pastry cloth or tea towel and use however you have planned!

Microwave Apple Pie Filling (for 4 pies in the Breville pie maker)

2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into quarters, then crosswise into thin slices, or into small dice

2 Tbl. sugar

2 tsp. cornstarch

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

pinch of salt

Put everything into a microwavable bowl.  Cover and microwave for 2 minutes.  Stir.  There should be a fair amount of juice being released from the apples.  Microwave a bit more until the apples are soft and the filling apple juices are thick and clear.

Little pot-roast pie!

My new pie maker!

Wonderful cookbook my friend gave me for Christmas!

ASB

Now the Bread Pudding!

What's your opinion of bread pudding?  For some it's the ultimate comfort food dessert-- homey, sweet, and luscious.  For others, it's a pasty blob of goop!  I think anti-bread pudding-ers are in the minority though, and maybe they've had only bad recipes, which are legion.  I know people that always order the bread pudding if it's on a restaurant dessert menu and consider themselves bread pudding experts.  I have one friend that even had bread pudding with candles for a birthday "cake"!
For those of you that love bread pudding, I think this is a wonderful recipe.  It's quick to put together and it bakes up really pretty, slightly browned and puffed, smooth and creamy inside with just a few plump raisins here and there.  If you don't think you like bread pudding, then hold on, because you just might like this one as an excuse to eat the BRANDY SAUCE!  Don't even think about making the pudding without the BRANDY SAUCE!  If you don't want the alcohol, you can use 1 tsp. brandy extract, or cook the sauce a little bit after adding the brandy to boil off the alcohol.
Note  One other tip:  the bread makes a big difference in bread pudding.  It can't be too firm or crusty (don't use sourdough, whole wheat, or French baguette type bread) or too mushy (don't use national brand white bread).  I've found the best thing to use is a loaf of bakery style soft, white sandwich bread.  The loaves they make in the grocery store bakery are usually fine.
It's cold outside, even here in south Texas!  Time to make a yummy, warm, comforting dessert!

Bread Pudding with Brandy Sauce (serves 6)

5 slices of day-old white bread, broken into pieces

2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup half and half light cream

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. nutmeg (freshly grated is best!)

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 Tbl. melted butter

1/4 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350F.  Butter a 1 qt. casserole (a round souffle dish works well).

In large bowl, combine the bread, milk and cream.  In another bowl, beat the eggs and sugar.  Add to the bread mixture.  Stir in the vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, butter and raisins.

Pour into the casserole dish.  Put the dish in a larger, shallow pan and pour hot water into the larger pan to a depth of about 1 inch.  Place in the oven and bake for 1 hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  The top will be slightly browned.

Brandy Sauce

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cup whole milk

1.5 tsp. cornstarch mixed with 2 Tbl. cold water

2 Tbl. brandy

In a small, heavy saucepan, beat the egg yolks slightly and add the sugar, vanilla, and milk.  Blend well.  

Cook over medium low heat, stirring, until mixture boils.

Stir the cornstarch mixture into the pan and cook, stirring, until thickened.

Off the heat, stir in the brandy.  

Serve warm, with the bread pudding.

In warm weather, bread pudding is also good cold!  The brandy sauce tastes like melted ice cream-- only better!
ASB

New Year's Day: East Meets South!

Happy New Year!!  Hope you all enjoyed a fun New Year's Eve and New Year's Day 2013!  Remember I mentioned that we always have Japanese food on New Year's Day?  This year was no exception, but true to tradition (at least in my family!), we enjoyed a variety of regional Amercian AND Asian dishes to celebrate!  

The "must" for a Japanese New Year are the sweet rice cakes called "mochi".  Let's just say that unless you grew up with it, mochi can be an acquired taste :)  It's made with a special rice "flour", steamed, then formed around a sweetened red bean mixture.  The little cakes taste mildly sweet, smooth and chewy.  The filling tastes like what it is:  sweet beans!  I make these every year and the joke around our house is that I'm pretty much the only one that eats them!  Still, since Marie was little, we've made these cakes every New Year's Day.  I figured it was a good way for her to remember a part of her family heritage, plus it was something fun to do together.

Another thing we like to have is tempura, which you've probably had in Asian restaurants.  It's usually a variety of seafood and vegetables, coated in a super light batter and fried.  It's not the healthiest way to enjoy your vegetables, but it's a tasty way!  Relax, it's New Year's Day!  This year, we had shrimp for our New Year's Eve dinner, and I didn't want to do that again the next day.  I used a chicken breast instead-- Japanese fried chicken! :)

So that was the "East" part, but what about the "South"?  I had some crab around, so I made crab cakes, and, the "must do" for a Southerner's New Year-- black-eyed peas!  Put altogether on one plate, it was a very tasty, festive way to celebrate the New Year!  East meets South 2013!

Note:  Most Japanese dishes are produced on two levels-- the "official" ones that are made in restaurants by chefs trained for years and years, and the home-style ones that are made by moms and homemakers.  You can guess which ones I make, but I make things even easier on myself with some very good convenience products.  I'm including photos of some of them.  Now days they are available in large grocery stores or Asian markets.

Mochi

1.5 cups mochiko (kind of like Japanese "Bis-quick", see picture above)

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 can sweet bean paste ("An"-- made from azuki beans, see picture above)

cornstarch

pastry cloth or clean tea towel

cheesecloth

paper cupcake liners

Line a steamer basket with cheesecloth and place in a pot with a lid (be sure to put water below the steamer).  In a large bowl, stir all the ingredients together with a whisk until smooth.  Pour the mixture into the lined steamer basket.  Put the lid on and steam for 25-30 minutes.

Now, plop the mochi into a medium-sized bowl and use a wooden spoon to mush it up until it is smooth, glossy, and super sticky.

Use a rubber spatula to scrape the mochi onto a tea towel or pastry cloth that has been sprinkled with cornstarch.  Push the mochi around a bit and roll into a long log.  It will still be kind of hot, so be careful.

Cut the mochi with a knife into 12 pieces.  Use your fingers to shape a piece into a round circle, edges thinner than the middle.  Put about two teaspoons of the sweet bean mixture on the mochi.  Draw the edges up around the filling and pinch together.  Place seamed side down into a cupcake liner.

Repeat with all the pieces.  

Enjoy with a cup of green tea!

Tempura

1 box tempura mix (Kikkoman or Hime brands are good)

variety of vegetables, sliced into 1/4 inch slices, cut into sticks, or left whole, depending on their size and texture

(examples:  whole green beans, sliced sweet potato and/or white potato, julienne carrots, green onions cut in half crosswise)

shrimp, butterflied, OR chicken cut into strips or small chunks OR any other type of seafood

vegetable oil

tempura dipping sauce

Note:  Don't go overboard in the amount of veggies and protein you prepare.  One dinner plate full of sliced vegetables, 1 chicken breast, or a small amount (like 1/2lb) of seafood is plenty for 4 people.

Make the batter according to the package directions.  Put about 1-inch of vegetable oil in an electric skillet, or a deeper amount in a large, heavy pot.  Allow the oil to heat to 350F.  LOCK YOUR CHILDREN OUT OF THE KITCHEN, AND ASK SOMEONE ELSE TO WATCH THEM.

Start with the proteins and dip and fry them until golden brown and crispy.  Remove to paper towel lined baking sheets and place in a low oven (180F) to keep warm.  Now dip and fry the veggies the same way.  For carrots, put all the sticks into the batter bowl, then grab a clump of them and put into the hot oil-- kind of like fritters.  Cook any watery veggies last (like green peppers, mushrooms, zucchini).

Serve with a dipping sauce made with 1/4 cup dipping sauce concentrate mixed with 1 cup hot water.

Crab Cakes

This isn't really a "recipe". Crab cakes are all about the crab, so the main thing to remember is don't add too many ingredients!  I just mixed 8 oz. cooked crabmeat with 2 chopped green onions, lemon juice from 1/2 lemon, 2 Tbl. minced fresh parsley, 1 egg,  2 dashes of Tabasco sauce, and about 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs.  Add about 1/2 tsp. salt.  Form into cakes and fry in vegetable oil until brown and crusty on each side.

Black-eyed Peas

Again, not really a recipe, but I used 1 lb. fresh black-eyed peas (frozen is fine!).  Fry two strips of bacon in the bottom of a small pot.  Add 1 rib of chopped celery and 1 crushed garlic clove.  Add the black-eyed peas, a few dashes of Tabasco sauce, and enough water to cover the peas by about 1 inch.  Bring to a boil, then simmer with a lid on for at least an hour.  Taste the peas and add salt.  

If the peas seem too watery, boil awhile with the lid off.  These taste really yummy over the crab cakes!

One more Southern touch!  Bread pudding with Brandy Sauce  leftover from New Year's Eve!  We're on recipe overload for now though-- I'll post that next time!
ASB

Gyoza: Japanese Dumplings!

Do you recognize these little dumplings from a visit to your local Japanese or Chinese restaurant?  Chinese restaurants call these yummy, pan-fried bites potstickers.  There really isn't any difference that I can tell; they are delicious regardless of what they are called!  Still, since my heritage is Japanese, we'll go with that for now!:)

My grandparents immigrated to the USA, so my parents were born and grew up in Colorado.  My mom made all types of dishes; she loved to cook also!  We had Japanese recipes fairly often, but that was always the menu for the New Year, no matter what!  Our "Japanese New Year" was pretty international though-- sushi and sashimi shared the table with my aunt's macaroni salad, ham, and one year-- a lasagne!  I guess it was actually very American!

Anyway, these little dumplings are so fun to make and even more fun to eat!  They are rather labor intensive since you have to form each one, but it can be a family project, or you can put on a movie, relax, AND feel very productive!  If you line the dumplings up on parchment paper and freeze them on a tray, you can store them in a plastic bag in the freezer.  Then you can have these little treats whenever you want!  

Gyoza can be filled with just about anything, but this recipe is probably the most common.  A lot of gyoza use Napa cabbage in them, but I had some beautiful spinach from the Farmer's Market, so I used that.  (Can you believe Texas?  December and January are the months for spinach!  I still can't get used to it!)  You can also use frozen spinach.

Well, I hope you try these tasty little bites!  They might add something different to munch on during the football games!  Happy New Year!

JAPANESE GYOZA (MAKES ABOUT 50, WHICH IS ONE PACKAGE OF GYOZA WRAPPERS)

1 lb. ground pork

10 oz. fresh spinach (not the baby spinach), or 1/2 pkg. frozen spinach, thawed and      squeezed dry

1 Tbl. salt (if using the fresh spinach)

3 Tbl. minced fresh ginger

2 scallions, sliced with green tops

4 tsp. soy sauce

4 tsp. rice wine (mirin) or rice wine vinegar

1 tsp. sugar

2 Tbl. sesame oil

1 pkg. gyoza or potsticker wrappers (Don't use wonton wrappers, they are too thin. Find these frozen at the grocery store-- they thaw fairly quickly at room temperature.)

Vegetable oil

If using fresh spinach:  Make sure your spinach is clean by rinsing in several changes of water.  Chop it up and put it in a large bowl.  Sprinkle it with the salt and toss.  Allow to set for 30 minutes.  Rinse the spinach in a colander and squeeze out all the water.

Put the spinach and all the other ingredients except the wrappers and vegetable oil in a large bowl.  Mix altogether very well.  Get out a sheet pan and line it with parchment paper.  Fill a small bowl with water.

To form the gyoza:  Hold one wrapper in your palm and put about 2 tsp. filling in the middle.  Dip your finger in the small bowl of water and wet the inside edge of the wrapper.  Fold it in half and pinch the top together.  Now make three pleats from the middle out with the edge facing you (the other side stays flat) and press them firmly to seal the dumpling.  Now do the same from the middle out to the other side of the dumpling.  Make sure they are sealed well.  One side of the dumpling has pleats and the other is smooth.  Put the dumpling on the paper pleats side up and press down slightly so the bottom rests flat.  If you don't want to do this, just seal the dumpling edges flat, but still make sure to put them on the sheet pan sealed side up and flat on the bottom.

Now, to cook them!

Heat 2 Tbl. vegetable oil in a large skillet that has a cover.  Use medium-high heat.  Put the gyoza into the pan flat side down (pleat side up) and allow to brown on the bottom.  This takes about 2-3 minutes, but watch them carefully so they don't burn.  Add 1/2 cup water to the skillet, cover, and continue to cook on low, simmering 5-6 minutes (longer if frozen).  Uncover and cook for 2-3 minutes longer until all the water has evaporated.  

Serve with a dip of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar to taste.  You can add chile sauce to that if you like things spicy!

Yum!

ASB  

French Christmas

Yay!  Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas yesterday!  We had so much fun with my daughter, Marie, and her new husband (since March), Miles!  
Well, every year for Christmas, I like to choose a theme for the dinner menu.  Okay, I know, it's weird!  I've had to endure my share of teasing from the family ("Who knows what it will be for Christmas this year!).  I guess Marie has had to grow up with NO traditional family Christmas dishes, that's true, BUT, she certainly can't say we don't have any traditions-- no matter how unusual :)
We always have our Christmas dinner in the evening (see, there's a tradition right there!).  We wanted to see the opening of "Les Miserables" at the movie this year, so I decided to go with a French dinner afterwards!  I needed to have a menu that would be able to be prepared ahead of time; then we could just put everything on to cook when we returned from the movie.  I decided on Julia Child's "Braised Filet of Salmon" for the main dish and it was YUMMY!  I'll include that on the next post!  BUT for dessert, I made the traditional (there it is again!), Buche de Noel, the Christmas rolled and filled cake, and it turned out SO good!!  This is the perfect Christmas dessert-- you can do it way ahead and freeze it, it tastes wonderful and complicated (but it isn't), and it's really CUTE!  The little meringue mushrooms are the key to the cuteness factor-- but they can be SO easy to make (see shortcut below!).
Julia's Buche de Noel is probably scrumtious, but her recipe in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is pretty complicated.  To me, it's a bit much at the busiest time of the year!  So, I went with this recipe and added a simple, smooth chocolate buttercream icing.
Once you've made one of these and have the method down, the variations are endless!  Pumpkin Rolls for fall, Strawberry Rolls for spring, Peach Rolls for Summer-- your year in desserts is covered-- bring on 2013!

BUCHE DE NOEL(adapted from the McCalls cooking school recipe)
6 egg whites, room temperature (I microwave the eggs--in the shells-- until they lose their cool! Just a few seconds!) 
3/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 dash salt
confectioners' sugar
FILLING
1.5 cups heavy cream, chilled
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons instant coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Grease the bottom of a 15x10x1" jelly roll pan; line w/ parchment paper; grease slightly. Preheat oven to 375.
In a large electric mixer bowl, at high speed, beat egg whites until soft peaks form when beaters are slowly lifted.
Add 1/4 c sugar, 2 T at a time, beating until stiff peaks form when beaters are slowly lifted. Transfer the beaten egg whites to another large bowl.
With the same beaters and mixing bowl, beat yolks at high speed, adding remaining 1/2 c sugar, 2 T at a time; beat until mixture is very thick, about 4 minutes. At low speed, beat in cocoa, vanilla, salt, just until smooth.
With wide rubber spatula, gently fold cocoa mixture into egg whites just until blended (no egg whites should show). Spread evenly in pan.
Bake 20 minutes, just until surface springs back when gently pressed with fingertip.
Sift confectioner's sugar in a 15x10" rectangle on a clean linen towel.
Run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it.  Turn cake out on sugar; lift off pan; peel paper off cake.
Roll up cake jelly-roll-fashion, starting with the short end, towel and all. Cool completely on rack, seam side down.
FILLING: Combine ingredients in medium bowl. Beat with electric mixer until thick; chill while the cake cools.
TO ASSEMBLE: Unroll cake; spread with filling to 1" from edge; re-roll the cake.  This goes a lot easier than you think it will.  Use the tea towel to help you get started.
Place the cake, seam side down on a serving plate.  Cut off the two ends of the cake diagonally and save the ends to be "bumps" on the log.
You can now freeze the cake and the "bumps", covered with aluminum foil, to frost and decorate later.  If you do, frost the cake straight from the freezer and then put it in the fridge until serving time, or put it back in the freezer.  Allow the cake to sit at room temperature for an hour before serving if taken from the fridge, and about 1.5 hours if taken from the freezer (refrigerate leftovers!).

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
10 TBL. unsalted butter, softened
dash of salt
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Beat all ingredients until fluffy and softly spreadable.

  
MERINGUE MUSHROOMS
I use Wilton meringue powder to make two things: these mushrooms and royal icing.  Usually, I'm against this sort of thing, but meringue powder is JUST dried egg whites and if you use it, there isn't any worry about using raw eggs.  Plus, it is SO EASY and that's important at Christmas time!  Follow the package directions to make the recipe for meringue shells.  Put some parchment paper on a baking sheet.  Preheat the oven to 200F.
Put the meringue into a decorator's piping bag (or a plastic bag with a corner cut off) and pipe out buttons of meringue of different sizes.  Those are the mushroom tops.  Then pipe out some tall points.  Those will be the stems.  Don't worry about making them perfect-- they will look cute anyway-- I promise!!  Make extras because they taste delicious-- like toasted marshmallows-- and your family will sneak some for sure!
Bake for 1 hour, or until dry and slightly browned.  When cooled, dig out a little indention on the underside of a mushroom top with a knife.  Use frosting to stick the stem into the indentation.  There it is!
Marie helped me put the meringue mushrooms together.  She and her Dad were also constructing and decorating a gingerbread house (Miles was helping by eating the "extra" candy.), so she used royal icing to stick the mushroom stems to the tops.  You can use the chocolate frosting made above, too.
(Marie also took this excellent photo; however, I couldn't get how to publish it without the weird border-- sorry!)
Final Assembly!
Frost the cake ends and attach them to the log, either on the sides or on the top, whichever look you like.  Frost the whole cake except the ends (the swirled filling looks good!).  Use the frosting knife to make lines on your "log" to look like the bark.
Right before serving, put the meringue mushrooms here and there-- whatever way you like.  Put some fresh rosemary (just to look kind of "evergreen-ish") around the log if you want.  Sprinkle with a dusting of powdered sugar "snow".  Joyeux Noel!

Sausage and Rigatoni

Do you like the Italian dish, sausage with peppers and onions?  I do, but for a lot of people, that's a lot of peppers and onions!  Here's a modification of that dish that combines sausage with green onions and cherry tomatoes.  The green onions add a light flavor without going overboard.  It was very popular at my house a few nights ago.  I used rigatoni pasta, but of course, penne or large shell pasta would work well also.  Recently, on a Lydia Bastianich cooking show, she talked about pairing the pasta to the shape of the other ingredients.  For example, she said bulky pieces, like slices of sausage, go well with bulky pastas, like penne or rigatoni.  If you are using long strands of pasta like spaghetti, you should cut your ingredients in similar long strands so that they will tangle up well with the pasta and not just sit at the bottom of the pan.  A-ha!!  That's how to get a pasta primavera to mix cooperatively!  Anyway, this is a very helpful rule of thumb and does work!

Also, how about sausages?  Usually, I like to buy the "house made" types from my local grocer, but I really like Pederson's sausage as far as a national brand.  It is made without preservatives, including nitrates and other not-so-good stuff.  It costs a bit more than similar products, but think about it, do you really want to buy a cheap version of sausage?!  There's a lot of trust there as it is !  Ha!  Well, hey, trust me, you'll like this!

Sausage with Green Onions and Cherry Tomatoes

1 lb. good quality smoked sausage, sliced about 1/4 inch thick

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

1 bunch green onions, sliced (use about 1/3 of the green stems)

1/4 cup white wine, broth, or pasta cooking liquid

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

black pepper, salt

1/2 lb. rigatoni or penne pasta

Big pot of boiling, salted water to cook the rigatoni in

Brown the sausage slices in a skillet, turning to brown well.  Remove the sausages and pour out the accumulated fat.  

Pour the rigatoni into the boiling, salted water.  Stir occasionally so they don't stick.

Add the green onions and the tomatoes to the skillet.  Cook and stir until the onions are slightly wilted.  Add the sausages and stir to combine.

When the rigatoni are cooked, drain them (reserve some cooking liquid) and pour the pasta into the skillet.  Add the pasta water, broth, or wine and cook a minute or two, stirring.  Add the cheese and black pepper and stir until combined and the cheese is somewhat melted.

Serve in bowls with extra grated cheese if desired.

ASB

Weeknight Arroz Con Pollo

Anytime a recipe title says "Weeknight", it's a signal that the recipe should be quick and tasty AND flexible-- something that can be put together after you come home from work.  It shouldn't take particularly special ingredients, and it's really good if you can make lots of substitutions so you don't have to go to the grocery store on the way home!  (I LOVE going to the grocery store and even I don't much like doing that at the end of a long day.....Sometimes I do and in fact, sometimes it re-energizes me!-- but I digress....)
This recipe for Arroz Con Pollo meets all the "Weeknight" recipe criteria.  It uses everyday ingredients, putting it together is a snap, and it is a very tasty rendition of the traditional Mexican chicken and rice dish.  Ordinarily, I like to put chiles in it (Hatch, poblano, or jalapenos), but this time I didn't because Ben had some tummy trouble a few days ago and I didn't want to aggravate anything!  
If you don't have a particular ingredient, feel free to substitute!  Really, the only thing you HAVE to have for Arroz con Pollo is the arroz (rice) and the pollo (chicken)!

Weeknight Arroz Con Pollo (serves 3-4)
1 lb. chicken tenders, or breasts, or thighs  
1 onion, chopped
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1, 4oz. can sliced pimentos (this you might not have, but you can use chopped green pepper, or the above suggested chiles)
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/4 cup sliced olives (black, green, Kalamata, plain or fancy-- whatever you have)
1 can chicken stock diluted to make 2.5 cups liquid, or all chicken stock if you have it            (if you don't have stock, use part white wine and water, or just water)
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 cup uncooked white rice
1/2 cup frozen peas or baby lima beans

In a big non-stick skillet, put in about 2 Tbl. olive oil.  Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and brown quickly on both sides, but don't cook through.  Remove to a plate.  Add a bit more oil if necessary, the chopped onion, mushrooms, and garlic.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and saute over medium heat until fragrant.  Add the white rice.  Allow to cook further, stirring once in awhile, until the rice browns a little and the mixture smells really good!
Put the chicken back in along with the olives and pimientos.  Pour in the chicken stock carefully-- it might go crazy because of the hot rice.  Sprinkle the peas or limas over all.
Cover and cook for 20 minutes on medium-low heat.  Stir around fairly well.  Cover and cook another 5-10 minutes, until the rice is cooked through.  
Ole!