This has been a hard week to come up with ideas for meals. Coming off of the holidays, all I could think about was eating less, not more. Our budget was tight, so we couldn't go out and buy all of the ingredientes we wanted to use. It was also my first week of the Winter term (I teach Spanish at the local community college), and so my mind was on work and not so much on food. All of the meals we ate and that I've written about were good, but I was eating to live and not the other way around. Now I'm ready to rebound, and have already started searching the back of my brain for other recipes that we have used and enjoyed.
ARROZ CON POLLO is sort of a Latin American (and Spanish) standard. There are as many versions as there are cooks, I'm sure. Javier used to make ARROZ CON POLLO with white rice, tomato sauce, cooked vegetables (carrots, celery, onions and bell peppers) and then put it all into a casserole dish, top it with cheese, and then bake it until the cheese had melted. This got the kids enthused about ARROZ CON POLLO, but being a cheese lover, it made me happy, too.
For last night's version, Javier used brown rice and the few tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, garlic, and some celery that we had on hand. Yes, we are still watching a budget AND eating things from the freezer, so he didn't run out and pick up any other ingredients. The chicken was some of the shredded breast meat we made in early December when we made our own chicken stock. It was time to finish it up as we continue to clean out the freezer.
As I watched him make this dish and sipped my wine, I couldn't muster a lot of enthusiasm for another night of cleaning out the freezer and using what we have on hand. But - the meal turned out great y fue muy delicioso. Se lo recomiendo a todos! (And when I say that I recommend it to everyone, I don't mean just the ARROZ CON POLLO. I also think that the using things up / cleaning things out combos actually work well sometimes)
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