Mexican Chicken and Spanish Rice

This is an easy to cook chicken dish with rice.

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts with some cumin and chili powder sprinkled on top.

Rice:
1-1/2 cups of Uncle Ben's brown rice (see package for amount/serving if you scale recipe)
3-1/3 cups of water
1 tablespoon of butter (I used Olivio...no trans fats!!!)
1/2 cup of tomato sauce
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 small can of diced chiles
1 small can of diced jalapenos



I placed 3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts in an iron frying pan and cooked them unitl they were browned on the outside. The pieces were frozen at the outset so I decided to go this way to quickly thaw them. Another way to go would have been to bake them in the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes but I felt like being hands on today!




Once I had the chicken thawed and browned I diced the chicken into 1 inch cubes and cooked them the rest of the way, sprinkling some cumin and chili powder on them.



While cooking the chicken I boiled a large pot of Uncle Ben's brown rice. I like the brown rice since it has a slightly higher fiber content than white rice. I tend to cook my food in large batches on the weekends so I cooked an amount of rice that I could eat over 3-4 days with meals. For your purposes you may want to scale it down to the number of servings appropriate for your requirements.

While the rice was cooking I placed a large onion (diced) in a wok with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and stirred it until it was sauteed. Once this was done and the rice was done cooking I transferred it to the wok and mixed it in with the onions. Next I added 1 small can each of diced jalapenos and chili peppers, 1 teaspoon of cumin and 1 teaspoon of chili powder. Finally I poured 1/2 cup of tomato sauce over the rice and stir fried it until it had reduced to a nice pasty consistency.




If you like you can add the chicken to the wok and mix it in with the rice. This will add a zesty flavor to the chicken as it picks up the tomato sauce....this time I didn't do that but have been known to mix my foods together especially when enaging in wokery!

I served it up with some frozen sliced zucchini that I whipped up on the stove in about 10 minutes. Fresh zucchini is better and is very good if you cook it in a frying pan in a little olive oil...perhaps another post on that?



That's it!