Arroz con Pollo!

A couple nights ago I made Arroz con Pollo for dinner.  Arroz con Pollo is simply rice with chicken in Spanish.  This is a common dish in Latin countries, and I'm sure there are probably a million ways to make it.  Some people make it very spicy hot, while others make it a little milder.  I don't make mine spicy at all because my children won't eat it if I did.  Some people might add vegetables to theirs, such as peas or carrots.  I prefer not to.  This is my version, and my family LOVES it! :

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken (or a package of thighs or breasts...whichever you prefer.)
1 1/2 cups of rice
2  -8 oz. cans of tomato sauce
2 tbsp of onion powder (or fresh onion if you prefer.)
2 tbsp of garlic powder
Salt to taste
Tortillas (corn or flour...although we prefer corn tortillas with this dish!)

Sour Cream (optional)
Pickled sliced jalapeno peppers (optional)


Instructions:
Rinse your chicken and put it to boil.  I left mine boiling for about 1 1/2 hours.

When the chicken is almost finished boiling, I started browning my rice.  I set the burner on medium.

When my rice is browning, I took the chicken out of the pan and placed it on a large shallow pan to cool. 
(If you prefer your chicken pieces whole, skip this step and leave your chicken in the pan.)

I removed all of the broth from the pan except for about 3 cups and just put it aside in a pitcher.

 See the rice browning nicely?

 When you are finished browning the rice, shut the burner off and add the spices, plus one can of tomato sauce and stir it up.

 Then you pour the rice into the broth you left in the first pan.

 Add the second can of tomato sauce and 6 cups of water and stir well.

 I removed the skin and bones off of the chicken. (This is optional..if you prefer to leave your chicken pieces whole, that is fine also.  I prefer to do this because my kids always  take 2 bites out of their chicken and throw more than half of their chicken away!)

 I then placed my skinless, boneless chicken into the pan with the rice and stirred once more.  Set your burner(s) on low.  Cover the pan and leave the steam slot open, or place the lid slightly "off" so that the steam can escape.  Now, you just need the rice to finish cooking, about 25 minutes.  Don't stir it anymore because the rice will be sticky.

 When it is finished cooking, you start warming up your tortillas.

 We like to eat Arroz con Pollo with beans, pickled jalapenos, sour cream right on top of the Arroz con Pollo, corn tortillas and of course....a HUGE glass of sweet iced tea..... YUMMMO!!  (:

 Have you ever eaten Arroz con Pollo?  If you haven't, I recommend you do! (:

Happy Friday!

Beans, Beans the Magical Fruit! (:

Marko was 10 months old when I got pregnant with Tita, so that means that they aren't even a year and a half apart....so yes, I clearly remember having TWO babies at the same time.  And it was very tough.  My Gosh was it ever tough!  Even going to the grocery store for something simple like a gallon of milk was an EVENT that I had to plan (and PACK) for!!!   In fact, any woman that's been fortunate enough to be in THAT club will vouch for me.  Which club you ask?  The 2 babies under 2 club.  Again, I had 2 babies under 18 months!!  Wow.  Not bad for someone that wasn't supposed to ever have children! (:
Up until the kids were maybe 6 and 7 (I'm not kidding!)... Everyone STILL called them "The Babies."  They had been known as the babies ever since....well, since they were ....babies!
Well, now--my babies are growing up.  Too darn fast for my liking.  It's tough for me to give them more and more independence.  The only thing I can say as far them growing up is that they help a lot more around the house than before, of course.  Take today, for instance...I was busy making dinner and you probably know by now that being Latina means one thing:  You cook (a lot!) and many meals include the ever-present side of either rice or beans and tortillas.  It's a MUST!
Well, Tita has learned to make a pot of beans all by herself!  And they end up exactly the way I have always made them.  I am so proud of her!
Here's Tita sorting through the beans to pick out the bad ones:

 She's so focused!

 Here's a picture of the raw beans right before she rinsed them:

 And these are the ingredients you need to make authentic Mexican beans.  You need garlic (fresh or powder), cooking oil, salt and of course, water!  You can cook them in a pan over the stove, a crock-pot or a roaster (which is what we use.)

 She rinsed the beans really really good and put them in a strainer.  She ended up putting in about 3 pounds of beans to cook in the roaster, along with 3 1/2 pitchers of hot water, 1/4 cup of oil, 1  1/2 tablespoons of garlic and salt to taste (for us it was about the same as the garlic salt.)  She then stirred it all up and covered the roaster.

 She set the roaster at 450 degrees and let them cook for about 4 hours.

They're done!  And my whole house smelled so yummy with the aroma of fresh cooked beans! Mmmmmm

 Here's little Betty Crocker herself!

My little helper.  I am so proud of her!  I'm excited to show her all the goodies I know how to make.  And she loves cooking too!  I tell you.... it's in her blood (:

Oh and about the beans:  You must let them cool all the way down before putting them into the refrigerator!  I usually just put them in the refrigerator in a large plastic bowl with the lid.  You can warm them up whole, just the way they are and eat them with a spoon, or you can heat the amount you need in a pan and mash them up for some yummy tostadas.  If you like them refried...like really refried: heat the amount you need in a pan with some oil, mash them up and you will see how they kind of start to dry up.  They are ready when you go to stir them and ALL OF THE BEANS stick to the spoon!  Warmed up any of these ways is really good for breakfast with eggs and potatoes, with green chile and tortillas.

In an upcoming post I will show you how to make the best Mexican rice EVER!  (I'm not kidding!)....or maybe tortillas...or fideo! .......hmmmm maybe my blog will suddenly turn into a COOKING blog!  I'm really kidding.  I do love to cook, but I am not disciplined enough to keep up a cooking blog.  Maybe someday!  I'll let you know (:

Oh and I was bummed because Marko was busy outside helping his dad cut the grass!  It was his first time using the lawnmower, but since I was busy cooking, I wasn't able to go out and take some pics of him...You can bet I'll be out there next week when he cuts it again!  The yard looks great and I am so proud of him!
One more thing....I have a very important appointment tomorrow.  I can't reveal what it is yet, but it's BIG. HUGE!  And no, it's not what you're thinking!

So what do you think?  I really have no idea how many cooking blogs there are out there already, and if one more is really necessary.  Maybe I'll just start one so that all of my recipes are actually WRITTEN down somewhere!  I think that is what I'll do.  For my kids/grandkids/great-grandkids.   I really wish someone had taken the time to write down all of my mother-in-law's recipes..

Have a rIdIcUlOuSlY fAnTaStIc Tuesday!

Horchata!

 Tita has been asking for D-A-Y-S for us to make some horchata.  If you have never tasted it..you really don't know what you are missing!  It is pronounced Orchata...the H is silent... It is a traditional Mexican sweet rice drink, and it is YUMMY!  You can usually find this drink at most Mexican restaurants.  You will need the following:

 A blender, pitcher of water, sugar (of course!), vanilla, milk, cinnamon, La lechera (sweet condensed milk), evaporated milk, and rice.  You need to leave the rice soaking in water for at least a day (in the refrigerator), and a couple of large containers or pitchers.

I made it like this:  You just need to add 1 cup of the soaked rice, 4 tablespoons of La Lechera, 1/2 tsp of vanilla, 3/4 cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of water, 1/3 a cup of evaporated milk, and 1 tsp of cinnamon to the blender.  You blend it up real good for approximately 1 1/2 minutes.  Get a clean spoon to taste it to make sure it is sweet enough for ya-if not, if it's not, add more sugar to your liking and blend it up again.  If it's too sweet, that's ok too because you can reduce the amount of sugar you add to the next batch!  Pour into a large pitcher or container.  Keep making batches of this until you fill the containers you want.  When you pour it into the containers, pour all of it, even the rice granules.  You let it sit for about 15 minutes and then you will notice it will separate-the granules will settle to the bottom and the horchata will be at the top.   Pour it into a clean container/pitcher and stop pouring when you get to the rice granules.  Then you have to strain the granules.  I use a small strainer to catch all of the rice granules left and you throw those away after straining).  I used a whole can of the evaporated milk when I figured we had enough.  After I strained it all, I ended up with 2 milk gallon containers!  Here is the blender with the layers of all of the ingredients (before I actually blended it all):

 And here's Tita with her glass of iced horchata!  We LOVE it!

Don't forget that this needs to remain refrigerated!   We had it with dinner and it was FABULOUS!!!!  Those 2 gallons will probably only last until tomorrow!

We don't make it that often, but Tita really enjoyed making the horchata and I was happy to make these memories with her.  Yesterday turned out to be a good day after all. (: