Chicken Fried Rice

This is pretty easy!
A tasty rice that uses left-over chicken scraps.











What you need:

- Cooked rice (instant works fine)
- Soy sauce
- Garlic poweder (or chopped garlic)
- Vegetable oil
- Mushrooms (if you want) *
- 1 or 2 eggs (depending on how much you want)
- Chicken, chopped

* You can choose any vegetable you'd like in there, as long as it's finely chopped. Green onions would also be good.


Heat the skillet with a bit of oil on medium heat. When the oil is hot, throw in the mushrooms and let them cook for a few minutes until they're brown.






Add the cooked rice with a little bit of water and garlic. Stir constantly for a few minutes.







Add the chopped chicken and the soy sauce to taste.








Now, comes the "tricky" part. It's actually quite easy. Push the rice to one side of the skillet. Break the egg and drop it in the cleared space. Stir constantly, until fully cooked, so the eggs get scrambled. When that's done, mix in with the rest of the rice.

The egg is not fully cooked at the end of the video. When it's not runny anymore, it's cooked.





And there you have it. Fried rice!

Broiled Chicken

It's easy to broil a chicken!
Pre-roasted chickens from the store may be less expensive, but I find that I can do so much more with a home-cooked chicken's left-over parts.

So, here is what you need:

- 1 chicken
- 2 carrots, julienned
- 2 branches of celery, julienned
- 1 clove of garlic (I forgot the garlic this time!)
- 1 onion, sliced (I forgot this too. Late night baking makes me forgetful!)
- vegetable oil
- paprika
- 1/2 cup of water

Ingredients

Pre-heat the oven at 400F

Mix the oil and the paprika.

Oil and paprika mixture

Coat the bottom of the roasting pan with the vegetables.

Use this to coat the chicken. Make sure to get every nook and cranny!

Coating the chicken

Put everything uncovered on the 2nd lower rack in the oven. If it's in the middle, I find it's too close to the top element and makes it burn too fast.

Leave it in there for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 325F. Still keeping uncovered, pour the water into the pan and leave to cook for about an hour.

TIP: Fire alarms usually don't like this stage. They'll go off, even though nothing is actually BURNING. So, be prepared to open a window or air out with a towel.

To check if your chicken is done, check the meat temperature. It is cooked at 180F.
If you don't have a thermometer, the chicken is cooked when the juices run clear.

TIP: Another trick to ckeck how done the chicken is. Grab the thigh bone and try twisting it around. If you feel the meat easily coming off and letting go, it's cooked.

Cooked chicken, out of the oven

You can use the vegetable either as a side or combine them with some BBQ sauce to make a tasty sauce.

Squash and Potato Soup

This is a slightly modified version of a recipe I found online.
This recipe requires a blender, a hand mixer or a food processor, because it is a puree.

Click here for original recipe


WHAT YOU NEED:

- A decent size spaghetti squash. About 2 lbs. (The original recipe called for butternut squash, but this worked out fine too)
- A medium sized onion, sliced
- 2 tbsp of butter or margarine
- 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
- About 2 litres of chicken broth
- 2 potatoes, peeled and cubed.
- 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
- Salt and pepper
- 1/4 cup cream cheese. (I had this left over. It's optional, but gives it a nice thick texture)
- 1/2 cup sour cream. (The recipe suggest a dollop upon serving. I decided to put it in right off)

Spaghetti Squash

TIP: To make sure that your squash is ripe, check the skin. It should not have any soft spots and the squash should sound hollow when slightly tapped.


Preheat the over at 375F.

Cut the squash in half, lengthwise. Use a cookie sheet or baking dishes with rims. Put a thin layer of water in them (about 1/4 inch) and put the squash face down in the water.
Bake them in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the flesh is soft.
Take them out and let them cool down a bit. Scarpe-off the flesh and separate the seeds. Put the flesh aside in a bowl.

Spaghetti squash, cut in half. Before cooking.

In a large pot, melt the butter and add the onions and garlic. Sautee them until they're tender.

Onions and garlic

Pour in the chicken broth. Add the potatoes and bring to a boil for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.

Added the broth and potatoes

When the potatoes are cooked, add the saved squash and mash the whole thing. Then, using a hand mixer, puree the whole thing until smooth. I don't have one, so I had to use a food processor. Which means that I had to transfer smaller quantities back-and-forth. That was a messy pain. Anyone want to send me a hand mixer? :D

When all is smooth, add all the spices, salt and pepper and cream and bring the whole thing to a simmer for about 20 minutes.

TIP: I usually don't add very much salt to my recipes. People's tastes are different and it's easy enough for them to add salt to taste. Not so easy to take it out. ;)

Final soup!

This soup is delicious either warm or cold as left-overs.

This recipe makes a lot, so you can put some aside in air-tight containers and frozen to be enjoyed later! It will just be a bit more liquid, because of the freezing process. It's a great fall/winter soup for warming you up.