New ripples, purple rice

June 7, 2007 by nikkislipp Leave a comment

Here are the colours for the two new ripples that i’ve just started…

Bright, eh? 🙂 One will have a base of turquoise, and the other will have a base of red (like my first one had a base of green), to use up those huge balls of yarn that i have. So, with the stripey baby blanket, that adds up to three projects concurrently!

Also, it was a holiday today, so i spent a bit of time in the kitchen…

This certainly was an unusual dish. It looks like bloody murder, but it tastes pretty good 🙂 It’s actually an Arroz con Pollo recipe from Extending the Table that i modified a bit, the biggest change being that i substituted a third of the rice with black rice (well, purple, it turns out–leftover from Mom and Jaret’s visit), resulting in the mind-boggling colour you see below…

Purple Chicken with Rice

1 chicken, cut into pieces and skinned (next time i’m just going to use boneless chicken breasts/thighs. I hate chicken bones. Icky.)
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 c. or more diced carrots
1 c. or more diced celery
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/3 c. white rice, uncooked
2/3 c. black rice, uncooked
1/4 c. tomato paste
1/2 t. chili powder
1/4 t. cloves
1/4 t. oregano
2 1/2 c. chicken broth
1 c. frozen peas

Season chicken with lemon juice, pepper and salt. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large pot and brown chicken. Remove chicken and set aside. Then, to pot, add onion, peppers, carrots, celery and garlic and cook until onion is transparent. Add rice and saute one minute. Add tomato paste, chili, cloves, oregano and more pepper and stir. Add the chicken. Add the chicken broth, and salt to taste, and stir, then bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cover. Cook for 20-25 minutes on low until rice is done. Uncover and stir to loosen rice. Stir in frozen peas and let mixture cook for a couple minutes more to heat peas through. Serve, and watch out for the chicken bones when eating!

Here’s another picture of the washed rice, just because it’s beautiful:

Then, as a snack/dessert, i made these cereal bars to use up half a package of fruit and nut flakes that has been sitting around for quite a while. They’re quite yummy 🙂

Cereal Bars

4 c. fruit and nut flakes cereal
1/3 c. toasted coconut
2/3 c. All-Bran cereal, crushed
1/2 to 1/3 c. chocolate coated sunflower and pumpkin seeds
1/2 c. corn syrup
1/2 c. brown sugar, packed
1/4 c. butter
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt

In large pot, melt butter and add brown sugar and corn syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil for one minute. Remove from heat and add vanilla and salt. Add cereals and coconut and stir to coat evenly. Let cool until only slightly warm, but still pliable. Stir in chocolate covered seeds quickly so they don’t melt. Press mixture into a greased square baking pan and let cool completely. Cut into 24 bars or 36 squares.