Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake cupcakes

Sometimes a recipe needs no changing: http://www.annies-eats.com/2010/08/06/raspberry-swirl-cheesecake-cupcakes/

Note to self: 3 tbsp of butter is plenty

Arroz con Pollo

Chicken and rice! As simple and as complex as that. The idea started with making biryani but I didn't want to marinate the meat for hours or bust out all the different spices. 

So I made this Spanish version which is basically chicken and rice with the veggies I had in the fridge. You can add/omit veggies. Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

- Rice - 1.5 cups (I used parboiled because I had it and I find it stands better to long cooking times)

- chicken thighs - 1 pack (abt 4, I trimmed some extra fat, bone in)

- 1.5 medium onions (2 small or 1 large - red or white. I had red)

- 2 ears of corn 

- tomatoes - abt 1 cup (I used cherry tomatoes from my garden) can used canned tomatoes

- 1 jalapeño chopped (de-seeded - substitute with 1/2 of green pepper)

- 1/2 can black beans (drained and rinsed)

- 2 packets Goya sazon

- Chipotle powder abt 1/2-1 tsp (can be skipped or substituted for cayenne or paprika)

- Thyme 2 sprigs from my garden(1 tsp if using dried)

- 2 bay leaves 

- 2-4 cloves garlic (smashed and chopped fine)

- 1/2 inch ginger (smashed and chopped fine - can be skipped)

- 3 cups water (note to self decrease to 2 3/4 next time)  

- cilantro for garnish (can be skipped or use parsley) 

- 1 tablespoon pesto (because I need to use it up. Totally can be skipped)

Here's what I did: 

- Heat about a tablespoon of Olive oil in a large Dutch oven on med-high

- Salt and pepper the chicken on both sides generously 

- Add chicken skin side down. Brown on both sides. Set aside. 

- In the same pan, add onions and sauté for 2-3 mins. 

- Add garlic, ginger, jalapeño and cook for a minute. Umm smells wonderful so take your time to smell it. 

- Add tomatoes and cook for a few minutes. 

- Add seasoning, thyme and bay leaves 

- Add rice and corn and coat everything in mixture. Toast rice for a minute or two

- I had some pesto so I added it now and mixed well. Add water - top with Chicken and all juices (skin side up). Cover and cook for 45 minutes

- After 35 minutes, I took the chicken out, added black beans, chopped the chicken into smaller pieces and mixed in the rice and let cook for last 10 mins. 

- Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve!!!

I can envision topping this with chopped avocado or salsa or sour cream. I didn't do it coz didn't have any of those but next time!!!

Granola

This is so good and customizable to anything you want. Came out of my laziness to go drive to the store and I had all the ingredients at hand. Googled some granola recipe and came up with this. 

Ingredients

1.5 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup nuts (I used walnuts but almonds, cashews anything would work)

1/2 of one egg white 

1 tbsp vanilla (skip this and add the entire egg white)

1 tbsp sesame seeds (skip if you don't like)

1 tbsp flax seed or flaxseed meal (again can be skipped)

2 tbsp brown sugar (packed)

1/8 cup olive oil

1/8 cup agave or honey (I used agave)

1/2- 1 tsp kosher salt

What I did:

Warm oven to 300F. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Spread in a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes. I baked it for 40-45 so it's a bit more browner but it will be lighter if you take out earlier. The granola will crisp up when it cools down. You can even add raisins or craisins now (abt 3/4 cup). I skipped this. Enjoy with yogurt and fruits! 

Kale and Sausage with Couscous

I just discovered Kale during the growing season in 2015 and it has become one of my favorites. I love it! It's delicious and I discovered that you can eat it raw, add it to pesto, roast it, stew it etc etc. I came up with this very delicious concoction that comes out so good, you'll make it again and again. I know I have. The beauty of this is that you can adapt it easily to be vegetarian or not. 

How did I come about this recipe? Well I made it up. My friend had given me bags of kale this summer and after pesto and kale chips with roasted veggies, I still had tons of it left. So now what? I had seen on TV that kale holds well to cooking and also noticed that sometimes it's a little bitter. 

So I started off by caramelizing some onions. Thought that will balance out the bitterness and looked into the freezer and saw this Jimmy Dean pork sage sausage and I was like that might work and in it went with some veggies. I was also into Israeli couscous at the time so I thought it would be perfect accompaniment and it was. 

This comes out amazing! And is so versatile. The one time I was out of onions and had too much kale (again!) and some sausage in the freezer. Too lazy to go out shopping, I was watching Chopped and drinking some Seagrams. Dinggg! (That's the light bulb in my head going on)...cooked the kale in the sweet alcoholic drink instead of onion. Hah! Worked! 

Ingredients:

Kale 

Onions (2 medium or 1.5 large)

Garlic (ofcourse!)

Jimmy Dean Sage sausage

Veggies (carrots, peppers, mushrooms or combination of your favs)

Chicken broth flavor base

Israeli couscous 

What I did:

- Add oil and tons of onions and caramelize it for 10-15 mins (until it turns Amber/light brown)

- Add Kale and sauté 

- Cover and cook until kale is darker green in color. Add chicken broth or water to prevent it from sticking. 

- Add veggies, sausage and chicken flavor base and cook until sausage is cooked 

- Add couscous (cooked separately according to package instructions). Toss! And YUM!!!

Friendsgiving!

A thanksgiving meal inspired by lots of fall veggies that I got from a friend. Away from home, friends are like family that you choose! You know who you are... This meal is for all my friends near (who got to eat some) and far who can just look at pictures. I am thinking of you guys!

      ...I wish they could tag themselves

So it all started with tons and tons of turnip! Yup apparently no one likes'em but I have always liked them. Called "gyante mula" (small radish) in Nepali, these were not so gyante! Take a looksee...

                       ...whaat?...

Other veggies she gave me were sweet potatoes, cabbage, butternut squash, kale (next post on those) and of course turnips! So my menu for Friendsgiving:

- Sweet potato hash (with turnips and hot Italian style turkey sausage)

- Stuffing

- Stuffed turkey breast

- Rumbledethumps (Scottish cabbage and potato mash)

- Gravy 

- Berry sauce 

 

Most of the recipes are mine except for rumbledethumps. I googled that so please do so too :). And here are the rest:

Sweet Potato Hash

Ingredients:

Sweet potatoes (boiled and cubed fine) 2

Small potatoes (boiled and cubed fine) 3 tiny ones 

Turkey sausage 3

Turnip - 1 small or half of medium. Cubed fine

Salt and pepper

Thyme (2 sprigs) and rosemary (1 sprig chopped finely)

What I did: Add about 1 tsp oil and brown the sausage (casing removed). Remove from pan, add additional oil and add turnip and deglaze pan with wine (I had some in the fridge but use water or stock... Whatever u got) and some water. Turnips take a while to cook so after abt 15 mins when they are soft and water dries, move them to the sides so that there is a well in the middle. Add oil, add thyme and rosemary and add onions and sauté until translucent. Add garlic and cook for 2 mins and then add the boiled veggies and the browned sausage and salt and pepper for taste. Coon for about 10 mins so that flavors merge and done!

Stuffing

Ingredients:

Celery stalks abt 3 finely chopped

1 medium onion finely chopped

1 large carrot finely chopped

5 slices white bread cubed

1 slice wheat or multigrain(coz I did not have enough white but use whatever you have)

Thyme and rosemary 

Poultry seasoning

Italian turkey sausage -3 

Chicken stalk or water (about 1/2-3/4 cup)

Salt and pepper to taste

Garlic finely chopped abt 2-3 cloves

1 small turnip or 1/2 of medium finely chopped 

What I did: Brown sausage with oil in a cast iron skillet. Take out an reserve. Add extra oil + a pat of butter and fry thyme and finely chopped rosemary. Add onion, celery and carrots and cook until onions are tanslucent. Add garlic, poultry seasoning and cook for a minute. Add cubed bread, and add stock. Salt and pepper to taste and the reserved sausage. Cook until a little dry. Done!

Berry sauce: Everything I was making was salty so I thought it needed something sweet. Totally a great decision. I didn't buy any cranberry so now what? 

Fridge to the rescue. Found some frozen berries (raspberry, strawberry and blueberry) so I put about cup and half with juice is 1 lemon + zest + 1/2 lime juice with about 2 cups of sugar.

Taste and adjust sugar and I strained it because the raspberry seeds were not pleasant. Delicious! 

Stuffed turkey: 

Didn't want to do whole turkey so I got 4 piece turkey breast cutlets 

What I did: Preheat oven to 375 F. Pound it thin and salt and pepper both sides. Put in a piled baking dish. Add the stuffing and hash and cover with the other cutlet. Use toothpicks to close and add about tbsp of butter cut into small pieces on both. Bake for about 25-30 mins. 

 

Gravy: Take the turkey out of the baking dish, add a little butter and whisk in about 1-2 tbsp of flour. Add

Stock or water to thin it out. Add to a pot on the stove and cook until thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste if needed. Yum!

 

Next day feast and overstuff yourselves. We found out older it gets, the better!

Quinoa Egg salad with Wasabi dressing

OMG a new friend made this smashing salad recently and it was uhhmazing! So obviously I had to try and replicate it. 

First, boil quinoa and eggs. Well I like my quinoa flavor packed so I added a little salt and cumin in the water. Ratio is 1:1 i.e. Cup water : 1 cup quinoa. Increase or decrease accordingly. 

Eggs, boil in cold water, once it starts boiling 6-9 mins depending on how hard or soft you want 'em.

Sauté veggies of your choice in a little oil. I did spinach, mushrooms, and maybe carrots and green beans when I had it in my fridge. 

Wasabi dressing: now here comes the interesting part. Wasabi dressing was a bit tricky because I didn't have any wasabi handy and didn't want to buy any just for trying a dish, so... Checked what I had in my fridge. Ooh horseradish, wasabi's cousin? Works! So here's what I did:

Stir together - Horseradish mustard+ horseradish sauce to kick it up a bit + soy sauce + some water to thin it out a bit+ some lime juice + Olive oil and a little bit sesame oil for flavor! 

To put together the salad mix all salad ingredients + dressing. Serve topped with avocado which makes it even more delicious. Don't add avocado in the main salad in case there are leftovers! Old squishy and black avocado? So not appetizing! 

Trust me... Try this one!

Pav Bhaji

Pav Bhaji is one of the popular street foods in North India and roughly translates to bread (Pav) and vegetables (bhaji). This past weekend I went to visit some friends and I was really inspired to recreate this treat that friends mom made for us. 

It's a delicious way to use up any leftover vegetables. I used whole wheat burger buns so that's a bit more healthier ;) 

Ingredients:

Any veggies that you have. I used the following:

Potatoes (boiled and mashed) abt 5 small

Tomatoes (boil with potato and then remove and purée) - abt 4 medium

Carrots (grated and pressed to remove excess water) - 3 skinny ones 

Green peppers -1

Green beans - couple 

Frozen peas - 1/2 to 1 cup

Onions -1 medium or half of large

Garlic - 3-4 cloves

Ginger - 1 to 1.5 inches

Pav Bhaji Masala (found in Indian stores) - 2-4 tbsp 

Whole wheat burger buns

Butter 

Oil for cooking

Salt to taste

Note: I can see cauliflower or broccoli also being great in this!

Preparation:

Prep all the veggies and chop beans, pepper, onions into small pieces. 

In some evoo sauté peppers, beans and carrots until they are no longer raw. Take them out and add some oil. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic and cook for about 2 mins. Add the Pav bhaji masala and cook for a few mins. Add some water if it looks too try. 

Then add mashed potatoes and add some puréed tomatoes. Add peas and the carrot/pepper mixture that we sautéed before. Keep mashing the potatoes and add tomato purée and about an inch or so of grated ginger. Let it cook until the spices and veggies mix together and its almost the consistency of mashed potatoes. Keep adding water if as necessary. Top with cilantro. 

To serve:

- Butter the buns and toast in a pan (you ban skip the butter and use oil or even dry roast)

- Serve both and top the hot bhaji (veggies) with a pat of butter

- Can also cut up some red onions and wedge of lime/lemon and serve it on the side. 

Crepes

Although I have been cooking a lot lately, my laziness has stopped me from writing it down. This past weekend, I wanted crepes. Badly. Although I have not yet mastered the art of dosas (Indian version of crepes usually savory)... I am glad to say French dosa works forme. Every time. And if I have Nutella with some sort of fruit (usually strawberry or banana) for me, that works out beautifully. And oh don't forget the coffee.  

So here is the basic recipe which I hardly changed. I just used amaretto instead of brandy and it came out yummy as always. Also, I don't have a crepe pan and probably never going to but a non stick works best for me rather than thick cast iron skillet. 

www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/breakfast-crepes-108134

Sesame Chicken

Saw this recipe in the newspaper. It looked delicious and it boasted to be super budget friendly as well! Tried it and glad I did! 

Here's what I did:

Ingredients-

For sauce:

Sriracha or preferred hot sauce - abt 1 tsp(this was my addition so can be skipped)

Soy sauce 2tbsp

Vinegar 1 tbsp (called for rice I had red wine -worked beautifully)

Brown sugar abt 2 tbsp

1/2 tsp sesame oil

Ginger 1 inch (crushed or grated fine)

Garlic 3 cloves (crushed or grated fine - original recipe called for only 1 clove)

Cornstarch 1 tbsp

Water 2 tbsp

For chicken:

Chicken - I used thighs 1 lb packet 

Salt and pepper to taste

1 egg

Cornstarch 1-2 tbsp

Oil for shallow frying abt 2 tbsp

Make the sauce first: 

My Sriracha was all gone and I had some remnants left in the bottle. So I added all the sauce ingredients to that except cornstarch and water and shook the bottle to mix everything. Then made a slurry of cornstarch with water and added to the bottle. This can be made way in advance and even stored in fridge.

Now the fun begins:

 

- Toast the sesame seeds

- While the sesame is toasting, clean and cut the chicken into bite size pieces 

- Take sesame out and add oil in the pan at medium low heat

- Add cornstarch to the chicken and make sure all the pieces are coated. Add salt and pepper to taste

- Beat egg in a bowl, add to chicken and mix to coat all pieces evenly

-Fry in oil and take out on a paper towel lined plate until all pieces are done.  

- Drain excess oil from the pan, add all the chicken back into the pan, add sauce and cook until it thickens. 

- You can add 1 tbsp of water at a time if you want to cook longer. 

- Top with toasted sesame seeds and scallions 

- Serve with white rice

Delicious Cream Sauce -pasta

This is the quickest most delicious pasta sauce that I have come accross. The recipe is something I saw on "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives". I just base the measurements roughly coz I didn't measure anything. Here's what you do:

Set water with salt to boil for pasta.

Chop quarter of an onion, 1/2 roasted red pepper.

In a pan with medium-high heat, add oil (abt 1-2tblsp). When the oil is hot, add onion and let it cook without stirring. 

Toss the pan or stir when onions start browning a little bit, add half and half (which is what I had but use cream , milk etc.) (about 3/4 c) and any bottled marinara or Ragu (abt 1/4 to 1/2 cup). Mix well and add the roasted red peppers. 

If you added milk, you can also add some béchamel if you have any to thicken it. Add salt and pepper to taste. The Ragu I added tasted a little sour so I added about 1 tsp of sugar too. Stir well and it should thicken a little bit. 

By this time pasta (I used raviolis) shoul be done. Drain and add to the sauce. Add some parsley on top (can be skipped)

Grate some fresh Parmesan and serve! Yummy!

This is so delicious but at the same time quick! By the time pasta is done, this sauce is done as well! 

Strawberries and Cream!

This post is more about the cream more than the strawberries. I wanted to perfect a pastry cream recipe for a cake I am imagining. I tried a few recipe and some were too eggy, while others were not thick enough. I am still working to perfect this for the cake but this is a tasty version I came up with. Here's what I did:

3 egg yolks

1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar - I used 1/4 coz not a big sweet fan and it was perfect. I wouldn't go more than half a cup. 

2 cup half and half, or heavy cream if you want river or half milk half cream for less richness

3 tbsp cornflour

1 vanilla bean

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2-3 tbsp butter

How to make: 

In a saucepan add cream, vanilla bean and some sugar and heat it until it's scalding but not boiling. 

While the cream is heating up, seperate te eggs and save whites for later. Beat the yokes with rest of the sugar and cornstarch until pale.

By this time the cream should be ready. Take it off the stove and remove vanilla bean. Add this to the egg yoke mixture in a slow stream at the side while beating the eggs vigorously. Don't dump it all in, in case the egg scrambles. Pour the pale yellow liquid back into then and cook on medium heat, until it thickens and stirring constantly. This is fairly quick. 

To store put cling wrap on top of the cream right away to prevent it from forming a crust on top. 

Chill in fridge and enjoy with some strawberries and Kahlua or Irish cream. Or as a cake filling!

Cornwall Pasties

I have been fascinated by English pasties since I used to this show called "Two Fat Ladies". The show not only fascinated me about English food which I quite frankly thought was pretty plain before but also with traveling all over England/Ireland, their history, culture and food. And the ladies are super entertaining! 

So on a very busy day like today when I get home and just want to plunk and do nothing, I was delighted to find some pasties I had made in the freezer. Oh yeah! They freeze well. Pop in the oven for about 20 mins and done.

I had made them last month when we had some out of town visitors and we went out to eat at an Irish pub and they were equally fascinated with pasties AND they had recently visited England. Did I really need a bigger sign than that? Oh if you are into Asian culture at all, it was fate! (More on that some other time!)

So what did I do? My usual... A little bit of this and little bit of that. Here are the details. 

Pie dough: on yeah your basic pie dough or empanada dough recipe. I like the recipe found in Epicurious here.

Filling: I decided to make it with turkey so 1 lb gd turkey, 1 medium onion diced, 1 large or 2 medium carrots -diced, 1 small potato diced, seasonings (I used worcestershire sauce - wor. sauce, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper and some brown roux that I froze but feel free to add flour). 

What I did?

In a pan add a little oil, sauté onion till translucent, add garlic and potatoes. Cook for about 5 min and add carrots, thyme and some salt and pepper. Cook veggies until a little tender and add meat. Break it up with you spoon and mix until there aren't any big chunks. Add wor. sauce, salt and pepper. Let the water dry from the turkey and to help with this add Roux or flour. Cook until water dries and it's done. Let it cool. 

To make the pasties: Roll dough, add filling and crimp the edges. Make some small incisions and bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Enjoy! Yumm...

My quest for fluffy white cake!

I made this beautiful cake here and it was devoured pretty soon. However the cake was a little dense for me. So I searched for white cake recipes. I was not satisfied with any of the recipes I came across so I decided to do the unthinkable. I came up with my own recipe...for baking a cake...from scratch :O

As you can see the first batch was a little burnt, overcooked and oozing out of the cups (although guinea pigs told me it was pretty awesome) so I adjusted the recipe again with the baking time and temperature and I was met with success!! Out came perfect fluffy and moist white cakes! Yay me!

And I can't give out the recipe links for this one, so here goes:

White Lemon cupcakes

Ingredients: 

3 cups flour

1.5 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt 

2 eggs

1/2 cup veg oil

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup and 5 tblsp milk

1 pack white chocolate pudding instant mix (can be skipped... Increase sugar by 1/2 cup)

1 tblsp lemon zest

5 tblsp lemon juice 

To make:

Preheat oven to 325 F

In a bowl mix all dry ingredients - flour, salt, baking powder and soda, pudding mix and sugar and mix well

In another bowl beat eggs, add all the other wet ingredients and mix well. Add to dry ingredients and beat until mixed. Don't over beat. 

Pour 1/4 cup in each cupcake liner and put it in the oven. Bake for approx 22 minutes or until fragrant and stick inserted in the middle comes out clean! It makes about 48 cupcakes. Recipe can be easily halved! 

Spring Cake

Happy Spring Everyone! It has taken a long time for this season to arrive and generally I am not a big fan of spring (allergies anyone?) but this year I just welcomed it with the cake below. This is my first fondant cake because I have wanted to make fondant for a long time. I would say definitely worth it because the guinea pigs devoured it within an hour.. between 10 AM to 11 AM in the morning... Cake for breakfast anyone?

The cake I used is Lemon Buttermilk cake which I found on Epicurious. It was filled with raspberry cream cheese frosting. Iced with just cream cheese frosting (my own recipe... still perfecting it) and then covered with fondant. The fondant recipe can be found here. I found the cake design on CakeCentral but for the life of me I cannot find the exact link.

Just to give you an idea of the timeline, I made the cake and the fondant on day 1. Then made frosting on day 2 (which sorta bombed... more than in another post) and then on Day 3, made frosting first and then it took me about 2.5 hours to put together the cake: frost the cake, roll out the fondant + cover the cake + cut shapes+ add to cake, make bird and nest :)

Flatbread/tortilla pizza

Whenever I have tortillas or flatbread as I recently bought from Costco, I think quesadillas (another post) or pizzas. Easy and quick to make!!

Sorry for the blurry pic! Guess I was too hungry!

 

Preheat oven at 400. While it does put flatbread on your cookie sheet, top with marinara (or your fav tomato/pizza sauce), cheese and any veggies you want. I added mushrooms and onions. And Thai red curry sausage (from

Costco). FYI: just cheese or onion and onion and mushrooms are yummy too!!

By the time oven preheats, prep is done. Pop it in the oven and bake for 10-12 mins. Slice and devour!!

Aloo Parantha

Gumbo

Bhindi or Okra as you might know this vegetable as reminds of my sister. It's her favorite veggie. But since I have been to this country, okra reminds me of Gumbo. 

Gumbo is a scrumptious southern stew made with chicken, sausage and shrimp.

I first made it based on Emeril's recipe and since then I do my own thing and do what I like.  

Jeri

Or as my Indian friends would call it jalebi! Well bottom line it's a dessert which I realized is basically crispy fried dough dipped in sugar syrup instead of sprinkling of powdered sugar.  If you really LOVE IT then it's worth it otherwise it's time consuming and not something I would make frequently. 

I did coz I wanted to. Will I again? Ohh I would have to like you. A LOT. More than a LOT actually. 

Ingredients: 1/2 cup flour + 1/2 cup plain yogurt + pinch of turmeric (to make it yellow) + pinch of cardamom powder (optional.. Skip it). Equal parts sugar + water for the syrup

To make: Add all the batter ingredients and leave it outside (preferably overnight to ferment). I put it in the oven -turned off obviously... Perfect place. 

Now comes the fried dough part. First make sugar syrup by heating water and sugar together until sugar melts. Keep this warm. 

Heat veggie oil and while it's doing that add jeri batter into ketchup dispenser. To test if the oil is ready, add a drop of batter and if it floats, oil is ready! Then fry jalebis in all squiggly shapes you desire until golden brown. 

Take it out on paper towel and soak in hot syrup for a few seconds immediately. Ready to eat!

My verdict: I transported it and it was still crip and tasty. Just half cup of flour and yogurt make a LOT!!

Tamales with Black Bean and Avocado Salsa

I made this a while back but have been lazy to write it all down! I have wanted to make Tamales for a long time. The first time I tried them was in a small Mexican restaurant. It is definitely time consuming but so worth it. However breaking it down and cooking it on different days is always a good idea. 

I researched what is accompanied with it and came up with black bean salad, avocado and tomato salsa. I combined it all into one and came up with a black bean and avocado salsa (laziness or sometimes accident thy name is invention).

So here's what I did:

For the filling:

Ground meat (I did turkey but hey take your pick)

Onion, garlic, taco seasoning (make your own -totally worth it... Recipe? Google it folks!) and mushrooms well coz I had some in the fridge

To make it: sauté onion, add garlic and cook until fragrant, add meat + taco seasoning and if it is too dry a little water. Cook until the water is dried. Add mushroom and cook until all the liquid dries up. Add salt to taste. It's simple but totally worth it. You can even eat it as a taco. 

For the masa dough and tamales: Here is a blog that has recipe with pictures - 

 http://www.hispanickitchen.com/m/blogpost?id=3365338:BlogPost:70594

What I did differently? I skipped the sauce she mentions and added equal parts water + masa and added the taco seasoning + cumin+ cayenne. 

For the Salsa:

Ingredients: 1 can black bean (rinsed and drained), tomatoes, avocado, tiny bit garlic, lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper and pomegranate seeds (coz I needed something sweet and I had some :D)

How to make: mix all together in a bowl. Really! As simple as that!

Paella

Oh yeah!! I went there. This was basically inspired by my laziness and my desire to not make Jambalaya. I wanted a one pan rice dish and I have not yet attempted Paella... so I thought why not? I happened to have all the ingredients in my fridge (believe it or not) so I gave it a shot. Boy am I glad I did!

Ingredients: chicken, raw shrimp (deveined but leave the shell on), chorizo (yup I really had some), onion, tomatoes (I used some fresh and some canned), garlic, green pepper, oregano, paprika, bay leaf, saffron, salt, some scallions, chicken stock or water and rice. 

Here's what I did:

Marinate the chicken: cut up into little pieces, add lil paprika and oregano oregano and little oil and let sit. (Maybe 15 mins if you are in a hurry but an hour if you are not)

In a big cast iron pan (paella pan if you have it but ofcourse I don't), add tiny bit of oil and brown the chorizos. Take out, add some more oil, add chicken and sauté for a little while (don't cook this can be skipped). Take out and reserve. 

In the same pan, add tad bit more oil if necessary, add onion, peppers and garlic and sauté until the garlic smells mellow. Add tomatoes and bay leaf and rice and toast for a little while. Add stock or water (note to self: add water according to rice you measure and DONT add any extra), saffron threads (crumbled in your hands. The more you add the yellower the rice would be but this is an expensive spice. Use your discretion but maybe no more than 1 tsp) and cook for about 3 minutes.

Add sausage and chicken and cover and cook until rice is almost done. Then put shrimp under rice and cook until done (raw shrimp takes approx. 8 mins to be done).. You can let the rice stick at the bottom a little and get crunchy. 

And because it's me and you cannot use up cilantro fast enough, top with some cilantro! Tada! Very yummy!!