Spinstah

Arroz con Pollo
I’m eating this right now, and it’s good. Struck me as a little bland at first but the flavor has really grown on me – definitely wonderful comfort food. (You may want to plan a bit better and have some kind of vegetable to serve on the side. I ate some extra olives.) Don’t let the length of the post and the in and out of the oven thing put you off of this recipe, it was very easy and quite yummy. I modified it to make about half the quantity, using probably a little over 3/4 lb of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. (YOU GUYS. These are amazing. Chicken thighs are a pain to skin and bone, and yes, somehow I always wind up having to do that with them before cooking them.) I didn’t have Sazon but I faked it with the help of this Chowhound post and I also used tomato sauce instead of ketchup. And I added more olives, because more olives are always better. Cooking time on this was also reduced a bit due to the reduced volume. I did about 10 of the 20 minute simmer before it goes in the oven, and then did a total of 25 minutes in the oven. Basically once the chicken is cooked through, you just need to make sure the rice is done. I think this would actually be really great at a potluck.

Pan Bagnat
This was very easy to make and quite yummy. I naturally made a few substitutions: red bell pepper instead of green, yellowfin tuna in olive oil instead of anchovies, kalamata olives instead of nicoise. I also used frozen artichoke hearts (thawed) as that was what I had on hand, and for ease of storage and assembly I just diced everything up, except the basil, and mixed it together. I also found that this made filling for way more than just four sandwiches.  It would probably be very good as a dip type thing at a party with bagel or pita chips.

Tomato, Rice and Andouille Soup
Very easy to make! I used a 14.5oz can of petite cut diced tomatoes and I also kept the rice separate. I used brown rice, cooked it as I normally do, and added it to each serving separately. This way I avoided having the rice suck up all of the liquid in the soup.

Thai-Spiced [Sweet Potato] Soup
This soup is one of my favorite quick meals – I typically make it with acorn squash, which I roast ahead of time and either keep in the fridge or freezer. I got a hankering for it but didn’t have a squash so I substituted sweet potato. Delicious! I used about 1.75 lbs of sweet potato, diced and sauted briefly with butter. I added about 1/2 can of coconut milk, probably about 2 tsp of the chili paste, and then a tsp or so of salt. I let that simmer briefly and tried to get all the sweet potato coated. Then I added enough water to just cover (2 cups) and let it cook until the potato was soft. Stuck in the immersion blended, tasted it, added a bit of water to thin it, and voila!

Enchiladas from Cook’s Illustrated
At a loss for what to make for lunch one week, I decided to make a point of choosing something from one of my cookbooks, and I picked up my copy of Cook’s Illustrated: The Best 30-Minute Recipe. This recipe comes from the leftovers section, so your prep would be a little speedier than mine. I made a few changes, most notably that I did not microwave anything, as I don’t have a microwave, and anyway the filling didn’t need it – I had cooked up four chicken thighs, and they were still warm. I baked at the temperature given for 15 minutes, and they were done at that point, so I pulled them out of the oven. These make for a very yummy and filling lunch. I also opted to make the enchilada sauce from the recipe they provided, and it was very easy and tasty, even though I was lazy about dicing the onion and my pieces are pretty large for what is supposed to be a fairly smooth sauce. I think these would be great in the summer with some vegetables instead of meat, and I’ll definitely be making them again. (Yes I use my oven in the summer. Not a ton but when you don’t have central air it hardly matters.)