For those of you that cook dinner every night you might understand what I am about to say, “Cooking dinner is difficult.” Ok, more accurately coming up with ideas of what to cook for dinner is difficult. I actually have it very easy because my husband would be fine eating the same thing all week then switching to something else the next week. As long as it was not a vegetarian dish three days in a row. But I am not happy with that. As you know if you have read any of my posts about food, I love left overs because they keep me from having to cook or at least keep me from having to start from scratch. The other night I was really at a loss as to what to prepare for dinner. It was a Wednesday so I really should have been thinking in terms of cooking for Wednesday so that I could have enough left over for Thursday when I have a late Nia class. But I couldn’t think “two nights” I just wanted to get through the one night and use the portion of a piece of chicken I had from the night before. I came up with something that I didn’t even think about being enough for leftovers but it was. It carried us through two nights. Asparagus, beans, rice, and chicken.
Another thing you might know about me if you have a read a few of my posts, I LOVE asparagus. I mean, love, love, love, love. Once I was asked what food I would want to have given to me free every day and I said asparagus. But even though I love it, I won’t buy it when it is $8.99 a pound. I don’t even like to buy it when it is $4.99 a pound. I might buy it when it is $2.99 a pound, but I like the $1.99 range. But knowing how much I love it my hubby bought me some recently. I didn’t ask how much it was. I just had five pounds of asparagus to eat. 🙂
I often use three servings of meat to make four servings of dinner. Usually my husband has a serving and I have a good portion of one. The next night I will use the third serving along with my smaller portion to make another meal. Well on this night I was using just my left over portion because we had only cooked two servings the night before. So to me it would be a vegetarian-ish dish. As it would have way more veggies than meat.
So here is my “recipe”
Asparagus, beans, rice, and chicken
—1 tablespoon olive oil
—1/2 of an onion, chopped
—asparagus (2.25 pounds) chopped
—2 teaspoons minced garlic
—1 3/4 cup cooked rice
—2 tablespoons of butter
—3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
—1 15 1/2-ounce can garbanzo beans/chickpeas, drained and rinsed
—3/4th of a LARGE chicken breast, cooked and chopped
—Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
—Garlic Salt, to taste
Heat the olive oil and the chopped onion. Add the asparagus. Cook only slightly (because the rice takes a while to heat up). Sprinkle garlic over asparagus. Stirring it and allowing it to cook. Add the rice breaking it up and letting it get soft. Use the butter to help the rice get moist (might need to use a bit of liquid too). And the cumin. When the rice is soft, add the can of garbanzo beans. Then add the chopped up chicken. Add pepper and garlic salt to taste.
Since asparagus doesn’t take that long to cook and everything else is ok to eat as is, it is really the rice that needs the most amount of time. If you are using freshly cooked rice then this would take minutes. As a note the chicken I used had been seasoned when cooked the night before so that is something to keep in mind when flavoring your dish.
For me it is the beans and the cumin that is “new”. I have done dishes like this before using other meat. I think this would also be good with left over pork.
I was thinking of the Red Beans and Rice recipe when I did this, using the beans and the cumin.
We liked it. What do you think? Sound easy? Sound like something you would like?
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