I’m so excited to be able to cook a full meal for my fam! After trying to make small meals at school so I wouldn’t have to eat the same thing for a week, it’s refreshing to be able to make a family-style meal. This recipe has been on my list for a while and was the perfect one-pot wonder summer dinner. Although it is wonderful when the whole family’s together, it was nice to have a dinner just pops and me.

I was a bit nervous about setting the whole dinner aside in one pan to cook for 45-60 minutes, but the constant unpacking that overwhelms my life distracted me throughout the cooking time. I’m also terrible at cooking rice, but luckily my dad taught me a few tricks. This recipe calls for valencia rice, but we only had long-grain white rice (Indians…). I didn’t know you could rinse long-grain rice and get all the starch out to help reduce the cooking time to something along the lines of an arborio or valencia rice.

In addition, I substituted a few whole tomatoes from a can for roma tomatoes. We countered the lack of saffron in our pantry with an extra 1/2 tsp of tumeric and I ended up adding some more cumin and red pepper flakes at the end because I thought it needed a bit more spice. Adrianna says she used about 4 cups of chicken stock to fully cook the rice, but mine only took about 3. Either way I would keep 4 cups on hand in case you need the full amount to cook the rice.

This is one of those dishes where I feel stupid saying “aRRRRRoz con POYO” but saying “chicken and rice” reminds me of that time I had to feed a bunch of people and we put some shredded chicken in orzo and when brainstorming what kind of sauce/toppings we should add, my friend Sean tried to convince us to dump a can of cream of mushroom soup to the mix…….maybe, but no. just no.

Served with a side salad, this dish was sooo much and should have been for a crowd! We’ll be eating the leftovers all weekend woohoo

Recipe here: http://acozykitchen.com/dads-arroz-con-pollo/

Brown the chicken: SORRY if this grosses you out

 

once all the chicken is browned, remove and cook up the onions and garlic

add in tomatoes + bell pepper…spices added below

rice soaks up all zee flavors

after cooking in the broth for ~45 mins

FIN!