This past week has been a pretty bad week for us, cooking-wise. Soooo many activities in celebration of Todd's birthday, what with seeing "How To Train Your Dragon" in the theater on Tuesday, attending Pajama Storytime at the library on Wednesday, cleaning up on Thursday in anticipation of possible company on Friday, and then being too beat on Friday to do anything but order pizza. Add a weekend of going out and doing little excursions over town, and the whole week was shot.
Even tonight's dinner was only half-planned. The Trader Joe's chicken was thawed in the fridge, but how to cook it? And what to do for veggies? I decided to cook up some of the veggies that *really* needed to be cooked ASAP.
At 5:00, I went home, cut up onions and tomatoes and stir-fried them with a bag of bean sprouts in the wok. I had just enough time to remove the fat from the chicken, cut it into small pieces, and coat it in salt and pepper before I had to rush out the door to the hairstylist. I left the chicken to sit in the spices while I was gone.
I returned a half hour later, dumped the veggies into a bowl and stuck them in the microwave to keep warm, and fried up the chicken pieces.
Dinner was served true Asian-style: everything tossed into a bowl and mixed with rice. Easy to eat!
Approximate total cost:
3 chicken thighs: ~$3
2 tomatoes: ~$1
Bean sprouts: $0.49
Add up the onion and rice, and the total comes to around $5. Not bad! ;-)
A while back I bought a 2.5-lb bag of individually frozen chicken thighs from Trader Joe's. I liked that they weren't all stuck together and that I would be able to take out individual pieces to defrost. Since we get a lot of frozen fish (Albertson's has some nice bargains like 2-lb bags of individually-wrapped salmon for only $9) we'd been eating mostly fish lately.
After my little bounty of manager's specials from Ralphs exactly one week ago, I thought I'd try my luck again today. Didn't come away with much except for a sale on cherries and... a 49-cent package of presliced baby bella mushrooms. They obviously needed to be cooked right away. So I mulled over my choices, and decided on a standard chicken-rice-and-veggie fare.
- 6 oz baby spinach (also from Trader Joe's)
- garlic
- 1 package sliced mushrooms
- 3 chicken thighs
- rice
The preparation and cooking was pretty simple. Fried the garlic, mushrooms and spinach in a wok with soy sauce for flavoring. The chicken I coated with salt and pepper, and covered with flour before frying. Mixed-grain rice cooked on the side in the rice cooker, and voila! A simple, yet tasty meal.
And I have to say-- those chicken thighs are delicious! They were so easy to thaw-- I just took three frozen pieces from the bag at noon and set them on a plate to thaw. By the time I got home from work, they were ready to cook.
Here's a shot of the food. The color looks a little strange, must've been poor lighting, so it looks a little duller than it actually was. Of course, it didn't help that the chicken wasn't really browned well. Better luck next time, eh!
At noon: cube boneless, skinless chicken breasts, season with salt and soy sauce, and let soak in a bowl in the fridge.
In the evening:
Fry chicken in oil in a large wok at high heat.
Prepare couscous according to package instructions. Add some diced tomatoes towards end of cooking.
Stir-fry spinach with soy sauce and a dash of lemon, and serve on the side.
A lot of the juice from the chicken ended up in the wok after cooking. Add some liquefied starch or flour into the mix, heat to boiling, and the mixture will thicken, creating a perfect sauce!
