That, my dear friends, was last night's dinner. (No bento yesterday because Wednesdays are gym days; didn't have class so no dinner bento! Tomorrow is Friday which is another gym day, no bento tomorrow!)
So, I'm actually going to post the recipe here, because I don't have any more pictures of it beyond that, and it turned out much better than I'd really expected. I mean, I didn't expect it to turn out yucky, just that I wasn't expecting much for the first time out. I had a bunch of chicken thighs in the fridge defrosted and needed to use them, and I was bored of everything I've ever made in the past, Google'd up some recipes and decided upon one called "Spanish Style Chicken Stew" and promptly ignored most of the recipe. (Even though I had all the ingredients on hand, I just didn't feel like a stew, oddly enough.)
Here's what I did~
A bit of olive oil in the bottom of a heavy bottomed skillet. Two small onions diced in the bottom of the pan, along with 3 cloves of garlic minced up. Once that was going for a little bit and softened, not browned, I added one sliced chorizo link (I'm sorry I don't know if it was Mexican or Spanish chorizo, I'm pretty sure it's this kind as I did buy the pack at Murray's Cheese a few months ago and froze what I didn't use last time), taking care not to burn or overcook that, since last time they came out a bit dry for my tastes.
At this point, I added a lot of red pepper flakes because I wanted some heat to my dish, then covered the whole thing in a thick layer of paprika (it smelled sweet after I did this, so that may answer the question as to whether my paprika is sweet, smoked, or what).
This entire time, I was chopping up 5 boneless/skinless chicken thighs. After I'd added those to the pan, I added another generous layer of paprika, kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper, and then let it start browning. I stirred it all up in the pot a bit to evenly coat it with the seasonings, mmm smell that? That's what "delicious" smells like on the stove.
After the chicken was mostly cooked through, I added a box of frozen chopped broccoli and half a lb. bag of frozen carrot coins. Mostly to get rid of them and also because the colors were pretty; had I been thinking more clearly, I'd have added some of the fresh celery I have in my crisper. I wasn't thinking clearly enough though so this is what you get.
The recipe I found also added a can of tomatoes, a can of beans, and some potatoes, so you can totally do that (it also included an oven step, which I wasn't interested in performing). Perhaps next time I'll follow the recipe more closely, but I was pleased with the results - it was spiked with heat, a bit of sweetness from the veggies, and very meaty. But loaded with veggies and packed with flavor! Love it!
I chose to serve it above with a toasted, buttered English muffin and an intense dollop of sour cream (with parsley flakes for color) on top to temper the heat. The heat seems to get worse the more days it is since I made it - I may need to go buy another container of sour cream to finish this off, eeps. It was absolutely delicious with the sour cream mixed in, a bit of a sour tang, but creamy, coating each piece of chicken... yummm!!!
Enjoy~!
And today's bento:
Left cup: yu choy (some may say broccoli rabe?), cut up to fit (stems AND leaves are in there, I don't waste)
Right cup: two Ajinomoto pork&chicken gyoza, with gyoza sauce in the little bear cup
Jar: Spanish style chicken "stew"
The gyoza sauce leaked out of the bear. Ah well, it stayed in the container at least. Mmm... delicious.
Happy bento! As tomorrow is another gym day, don't expect a bento from me... which means #300 will be on Monday! Gasp! 300 already?!
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