Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Healthy Meals for Days: One Dish that makes Many Meals!

 


I'm going to share with you one of the my favourite healthy and convenient recipes. Not only is this dish simple and delicious, it also provides you with a variety of  'meals for days'! If I were making this batch of food for myself alone, it would probably feed me for 4 days costing around ten bucks for the whole thing :D  One of the key components to eating healthy is having that healthy food prepared and convenient so that when your in a rush and starving, you have a healthy food item you can go to immediately.

This dish is cheap, quick and healthy... "these are a few of my favourite things"!


In preparing this dish I've gone back to an 'old school' way of cooking a meal... in essence this is a take on a 'boiled dinner'.. but that sounds so awful... So I'll call it Bootsy's Chicken! Not sure that name's any better but let's go with it :)



I start off with a family pack of chicken. You can use boneless/skinless or boned and with skin on. For this dish I used skin on and bone in. I find it adds better flavour to the broth. I also have flavour components including: carrots, an onion, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary and thyme, paprika and Cajun seasoning.



 
I then fill a pot half full with water (enough to cover the chicken) add the chicken and salt the water heavily. I don't measure the salt specifically, but it's a good 2-3 tablespoons. The salt is key to flavouring the chicken meat and the broth.





I then chop up my carrot and onion into large, bite sized pieces...




Add them to the pot... and then start adding my flavour components. Worcestershire sauce...





and then add approximately 1 Tablespoon of each of the spices. At this point you bring the water to a boil, then turn the heat to medium-low, cover the pot and cook the chicken for approximately 30mins or until cooked through.




Once the chicken is cooked, I remove it from the broth and let it sit and cool down till it's just warm. I then remove the skin and take the meat off the bones. The chicken meat will literally fall right off.. it's super moist, flavourful and delicious... quality checks are highly recommended ;)





With the remaining, delicious broth I measure off 4 cups.. and pour it back into the pot. I then add 2 cups of Jasmine rice (or brown rice, or basmati... what ever your preference) into the pot of broth and turn the heat up to high.




I also add some sesame oil and soya sauce to add to the flavour as well as it also creates a lovely aroma in the kitchen. Jasmine rice itself also produces a lovely, nutty aroma. Bring this to a boil, then turn the heat to low, cover and let simmer for approximately 15-20min until rice is cooked.





Once the rice is cooked I add about 1 cup of frozen peas, stir them in well, cover and let the residual heat from the rice cook the peas. In approximately five minutes the peas are cooked and it's ready to eat!


With the chicken in mind, I've made a beautiful, delicious Greek salad with chicken on top.
(and a glass of Italian red wine!)




The shredded chicken can be used for so many different meals! You can easily stir in BBQ sauce with the chicken to make a BBQ chicken wrap or put in on top of a Southwest Salad with shredded cheddar cheese. You can us it for sandwiches, make fajitas with it, or add it to a stir fry! The options are limitless :D



Here is the finished meal... A lovely veggie-packed, rice dish cooked in delicious, home made chicken broth. The container behind it is the rest of the cooked chicken. There is also another 2 cups of broth left over which can be used to make a variety of soups.. OR, try cooking your vegetables in it for extra flavour (I bet you won't even need to add butter!)

So there you have it! A cheap, simple and delicious meal that will last you for days :)

Cheers,
Bootsy










2 comments:

  1. Thanks Cat-in-a-Box!!!

    I love making this dish.. there are so many different flavour options you can use for the broth and rice. I've at times used different jams or jellies to flavour rice dishes. I had this lovely Apple Jelly that I would add here and there to meat, or use it as a glaze, or add it to rice dishes and it would just give the meal a little extra pizzazz!!! And it makes the house smell so lovely and fragrant :D

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