The recipe for these juicy Basil Honey Baked Chicken Thighs has been on my mind for longer than I care to admit (I have a two page list plus several notebooks filled with recipe ideas…). Better late than never, I say! The first time I…
Margarita chicken tacos. I’m not sure what possessed me to want to cook chicken in tequila, but I had been thinking about it for quite a while before trying it out this past week. Maybe I just really wanted margaritas and subconsciously felt maybe food…
My mom probably made this dish once a week when I was in high school because it was so dang easy and a family favourite. And then when I was a snowboard bum in BC after university, I made it almost every week because it fed me for several days. Chicken PandemoniYUM from Greta and Janet Podleski’s Looneyspoons Collection is a big winner in my books (and Ian’s). I’m sure if you don’t already have any of the Looneyspoons books, you’ve at least looked through them at a friend or family member’s (oh, am I the only one that peruses cookbooks? My bad). Definitely worth skipping the library and just buying this one. I for one, have a photo of my mom’s recipe on my phone and I’ve also written it down in my own recipe book (that I have literally had since I was 14 – thanks, Jess!)
Read along for a few professional tips and tricks to make chicken pandemoniYUM a staple in your home!
Alright, to start, you can easily cook more chicken than the recipe calls for. Definitely season it with salt and pepper to start and chop into bite size pieces and use a little more oil in the pan to start off with.
Can I be honest? I don’t actually measure the garlic, onion and mushrooms when I make this dish. I’m sorry! I’m sure at one time I did, but now I just know I love this dish so much and the more flavour, the better! So for me, I do a whole RED onion – much more flavour than a white, yellow or sweet one, in my opinion.. plus that’s just what my mom used.
For the rice, I simply use 1 cup of dry basmati rice instead of the package suggested in the book because we couldn’t always find the one they suggested in the store. I recently recommended this recipe to a friend who was also unable to find the rice package at the store, maybe it’s only available in America? Anyway, you’ve got to trust the process and let the rice cook.. the liquid will absorb eventually even if you feel like it won’t. Speaking of liquid, altogether, I use 1 1/4 cups chicken broth, 1/2 cup white wine….. but like…. A little extra wine in this won’t hurt anyone. Same goes for the parmesan cheese! And do you know what I do once it is all cooked? I toss in some fresh diced Roma tomatoes and cover it for a few minutes before serving for the tomatoes to soften. SO GOOD.
This dish is great for leftovers and truly feeds a crowd. Now, the only problem is, I literally cannot find it anywhere online to link you to. So you’re going to have to head over to Aunt Glenda’s, your neighbours, the library or Chapters I even saw a copy in a Goodwill store once, and you’re going to have to pick up a copy of Looneyspoons so you can make Chicken PandemoniYUM (I swear that’s how it is spelled in the book).
Happy cooking!
PS don’t forget the napkins
We’ve all been there. Random halves of bell peppers, almost too floppy celery because let’s face it: who actually eats an entire bunch? An onion that you think might grow an arm soon, that 3/4 of a cabbage that is still left because you only…
Home is Where the Food Is Lately, I have been really missing England. Surprisingly, it is not because of the weather.. I’m a lover of the cold and not going to lie, I was really excited to wake up to snowy conditions this week. What…
Until I stumbled upon this recipe for Slow Cooker Jambalaya, I did not even know what was in jambalaya. I wanted to review something made in a crock pot this week, and this recipe from Creme de la Crumb caught my eye. So here we are!
First thing’s first: ingredients! Everything was easy enough to find at the grocery store – nothing out of the ordinary except the andouille sausage. I looked to see exactly what it was on Google and set off to see if I could find it. I had also looked online for types of sausage that I could use as an alternative, chorizo being one, so I picked up 300 g of chorizo.
To chop and prep everything took me honestly at least a half hour. Mind you, the chorizo was tough and took a while itself! I do suggest that you chop everything the night before and then toss it into the crock pot in the morning before you go to work.
The instructions don’t say when to add the onion, so I totally forgot about it. But had I remembered, I would have just added it straight off the hop with everything else. For the Cajun seasoning, I made my own. I found a DIY Cajun seasoning on Pinterest from a blog called A Mindfull Mom. The amount that one batch makes was enough for the jambalaya.
I personally prefer when there are pieces of tomato, so when I make it again, I will use diced tomatoes rather than crushed. I will add a bit of tomato paste to thicken the dish.
If you aren’t going to be home during the day, I would suggest using only one cup of broth and cook the rice separately when you are home. That will make things a bit easier, for sure. Heck, you could even cook the rice the day before if it saves you time and just add the cooked rice at the same time as the shrimp!
I really enjoyed this dish! The chorizo, chicken and shrimp with the peppers really give you a different burst of flavour in every bite which is awesome. It was pretty spicy – I used two jalapeno peppers – and so I put a dollop of plain Greek yogurt in my bowl to tone it down a bit, which helped. Like I said, I cooked the rice separately and served the jambalaya over top of it and was totally satisfied with just one bowlful!
I hope that you all will try this tasty dish and enjoy it as much as I did.
Happy cooking!
