Chicken Party!

I'm jumping the gun here a wee bit, but I wanted to get this recipe up for tonight's chicken dinner. It smells good already, and if everything keeps chugging along, it'll turn out nicely.

Edit: Here's the picture of our wonderful meal tonight.

Fiesta Chicken and Rice
- 4 chicken breasts  (we have 3 on hand)
- olive oil
- 1 cup rice
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp. oregano
- 1 tsp. chili powder
- 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (super spicy, use with caution)
- 1/2 can diced tomatoes (or other tomato equivalent)
- 1 3/4 c. chicken broth
- 1 cup shredded cheese
- 4 green onion stems, sliced thin


Season chicken with salt and pepper, place in medium-high heat pan with olive oil. Cook until golden brown on one side* (4 min). Place chicken on plate, remove any large bits of fat from pan.


Add onion, rice, and 1/2 tsp. salt to skillet. Cook until rice is lightly toasted and onions start to soften (3 min). Reduce heat if rice toasts too quickly.


Add garlic, oregano, chili powder, and cayenne pepper. Cook until fragrant (15 sec). Add tomatoes and chicken broth, and scrape the bottom of the pan for clingons. Place chickens back in pan, nestled brown side up, and transfer any juices left on the plate to the pan. Cover, reduce heat, and cook until chicken is cooked through (12 min). 


Remove chicken from pan and place on a cutting board, loosely tent with foil. Stir rice, and add extra water if needed**. Cover, cook on low heat until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed (12 min). Slice chicken breasts into 1" pieces. 


Remove skillet from heat. Arrange chicken breast pieces on top of rice, and sprinkle cheese and green onions on top. Cover and let stand until cheese melts (5 min). Serve with margaritas and a slice of satisfaction.


* Original recipe says brown on one side. I did that, then turned them over and cooked the raw side for a few short minutes. I didn't like the idea of raw chicken going into rice and onions.

** Original recipe only uses 1 1/4 c. chicken broth, but once I took the chickens out to cut them, I noticed that the rice in the pan had already sucked up all of the available liquid. I added more water, but I would have liked to add chicken broth. Thus, I upped the amount of broth you need to 1 3/4 c. in the ingredients list, which is about how much I ended up using.

There were a couple of ingredients in here that we didn't end up using. One was green peppers - I like peppers, but H. doesn't, so we skipped those. I would probably get one of those cool green/yellow/red pepper combos they sell in grocery stores just to add some neat colors to the rice. The second ingredient was beans - H. wanted refried beans, and mixing that into the rice would just yield pasty rice. So we're having those on the side.

And that's all for tonight. Enjoy!