Last night I made a chicken stew from Real Simple Magazine. I chose this recipe because we all like olives, and it's different than my usual fare. Also, it is indeed pretty simple.
However, I misread the suggested time and thought it was a 30 minute recipe. In fact, it's a 60 minute recipe. Thankfully, I still started a full hour before we were supposed to eat. A good thing, since it took almost 90 minutes to prepare, and would have taken 1 3/4 hours if I had followed all of the directions. Why so long?
Here's why:
Original Recipe: Chicken and pepper stew with olives
1/2 cup flour 3 green bell peppers sliced
1 tsp. paprika 4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 1/2 tsp salt 2 cups chicken broth
3/4 pepper 2 cups pitted olives
16 chicken thighs, halved 1/2 cup golden raisins
3 Tbsp. olive oil 2 cups cooked rice
3 red bell peppers, sliced
Changes I made: 1/3 the amount of chicken, and halved the rest of the ingredients (except the rice). Also, added some red wine. Because red wine makes everything taste better.
Real-time directions (for our house, anyway):
4:29 - put baby in play pen; baby commences play; toddler (who has been ill) is occupied with something or other
4:30 - begin cooking brown rice
4:32 - begin slicing peppers (who has them pre-sliced? It's such a cheat to list sliced veggies in the ingredient list.)
- pretend to be a Wiggle at behest of toddler
4:35 - baby commences fussing; remember to make green beans for baby (no stew for you!)
4:37 - mix together flour, paprika, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper
- pretend to be Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother
- baby commences screaming
4:39 - pick up baby and attempt to soothe
4:45 - nurse baby
4:55 - abandon all principles; turn on Baby Einstein for both toddler and baby
4:56 - cut up chicken (again, I'd like to note the cheat factor in listing "halved chicken" in the ingredient list)
5:00 - coat chicken with flour mixture
- put oil in a large pot and heat on medium high
5:02 - realize that the wrong burner is on, and am about to burn paper plate on which coated chicken is sitting
- in mad dash to turn off burner, knife hits numerous clean utensils and smears chicken juice all over them ( #*@$@!!)
5:04 - begin browning chicken thighs
5:05 - sick toddler asks for cuddle, but mommy is cooking. Bad mommy.
5:08 - baby commences screaming
5:10 - abandon principles again: hold baby near hot stove as I flip chicken
- note that toddler is asleep; poor little toddler
5:12 - arm tired; put baby down in front of fridge to play with magnets
5:15 - baby almost crushes finger in lazy susan; back into play pen!
5:16 - baby screaming
5:17 - begin eyeing wine bottle
5:20 - remove very browned chicken (which has now been cooking for double the amount of time it should be)
- deglaze pot with a bit of wine; add peppers, 1/2 cup broth, rest of salt and pepper
5:21 - pick up baby
- stir peppers occasionally
5:26 - garage door opens!!
5:27 - hand off baby to husband
5:30 - peppers too soft
- add chicken and remaining ingredients, including garlic that was forgotten earlier
- simmer, covered for 15 minutes
- congratulate self for buying the pitted olives
5:33 - turn off rice; let sit with lid on
- set table, do some laundary
5:40 - rice is done (for a change)
5:48 - chicken is cooked through (at this point, I was supposed to uncover and simmer another 15-20 minutes. oops.]
- begin waking up toddler
5:50 - wrath of toddler incurred
5:55 - sit down to eat
6:45 - finally drain rest of green beans, now devoid of all nutrients
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So, how did it taste? Well, Jon added sriracha sauce and Anna basically sobbed and had tantrums all through dinner. But I really liked it, and will make it again.
It's been awhile since I tried to cook a meal right before dinner. These days I'm all about the slow cooker, or making meals early in the day (while someone is napping) and reheating later. I think we'll go back to that for awhile.
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