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DRAFT TODAY, POST TOMORROW: Some posts may be in draft status until I (aka procrastinator extraordinaire) get around to posting them.



Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Spiced Chicken with Black Eye Peas and Rice

People ask me all. the. time. "what do you eat" or "what can you eat" or some variation on those. I have been a recipe collector for many years--I don't make the majority of them but I sure do have a lot of them! I have a collection of cookbooks that I'd like to thin out. And I'm looking at buying a couple more.

I went to Half Price Books to see if they have a book I borrowed from the library. I didn't have a chance to make any recipes from it but I think it will be a good book for me to use: Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals (Mark's Daily Apple). I also wanted to check out Practically Paleo (Balanced Bites) but there seems to be a waiting list; it has great feedback everywhere I've looked and it has an autoimmune protocol section so I think I might purchase it as well. I didn't find what I was looking for but they had some Mark Bittman books on the clearance rack. I have How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and I almost always check them when I have a random ingredient that I'm not sure how I want to use. So I thought, eh, I don't need another but I'll check out these two they have for $2 each. And I got How to Cook Everything Quick Cooking. It breaks my "must have many photos rule" but his other books do too, and as I flipped through this one, he kept the recipes simple enough that I don't have to make a lot of substitutions on many of them.

When I had lunch with J last week, she mentioned that her guy had made dinner and she commented that it was something I could eat, just as it was, no modifications. Apparently they have the 'what can V eat' conversation when I'm not even there. A lady I used to work with would tell me that she would think that while they were making dinner at her house--can V eat it? So J's comments reminded me that I want to keep going back to my old cookbooks to see what I really have that I can make without minimal changes.

I love, love, love Cooking Light. I got their magazine for years and still have stacks of them as well as a binder and a box of pages I tore out. Yes, seriously. Have I not told you that I'm a recipe hoarder? I do not lie!

Tonight, I pulled out one of my CL cookbooks and found a recipe for Spiced Chicken with Black Eye Peas and Rice. I read the recipe, considered what I had in the house, and got started. I started some Trader Joe's quick cook brown rice which takes about 10 minutes. I did it with just water and a little salt so I'd have leftover rice I could use later.

Next I trimmed the chicken, mixed my spices (Old Bay is gluten-free). I heated my brand new 12 inch cast iron skillet, brushing the olive oil up the sides since I haven't used it before. (It is seasoned but still, that's me, okay.) Then in the chicken went. Ah, I've missed you, cast iron. I waited a couple minutes and turned it, waited again, then put it in the oven.

When the chicken was done, I put it in a dish with a lid to stay warm while I "fried" about half my rice in the skillet, adding the seasonings (Franks Hot Sauce is also gluten-free) from the recipe. I knew that Mick wouldn't want the black eye peas so I added a half can of peas and carrots. After I had his out of the pan onto his plate, I added black eye peas to mine to warm.
This is his; mine is better!
The verdict: naturally gluten free and very, very tasty. That's some yum--expect repeats. The hot sauce does NOT make it spicy; it just adds some flavor.

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