More than just chicken and rice

So I've been cooking a little bit again... but due to my situation the food has been so boring it's not worth writing about.  Until now!  I stumbled across something that turned out surprisingly good, good enough that I want to remember it and make it again!

I accidentally made rice taste like stuffing*.  Not bad, right?

Secret Ingredient Chicken and Rice Casserole

• 2 large-ish chicken breasts, cut into (roughly) bite-sized pieces
• 5 or so carrots - washed, peeled, and chopped
• 1 medium zucchini - quartered lengthwise and chopped
• 1.5 cups of white rice (you could probably use brown, but I had white)
• 1.5 cups leftover mushroom broth
• 1 cup water
• Olive Oil (1-2 tsp?)
• Salt (1/2 to 1 tsp? Husband likes salty rice)
• Random spices - I used about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon each of oregano, cardamom, and really old curry powder
• and the secret ingredient...  1 can of coconut milk!

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Place rice, oil, and salt in a large glass baking dish (i used 13x9 i think? the really big one).  Mix up until all the rice is coated with oil and salt.  Add more oil or salt as desired.
3. Add in other chopped up ingredients, and mix up.  Attempt to distribute evenly.
4. Mix coconut milk, broth, and water in a bowl and carefully pour over everything in the glass dish.  Everything should be just submerged - if you need more liquid add a little more water or broth.  (I was trying to save dishes and didn't quite mix them all first, i don't think it mattered much... but if i wasn't so lazy/making-things-up-as-i-went, i would have pre-mixed)
5. Sprinkle desired spices over the top, and place in oven.
6. Bake for 60-90 minutes, until chicken and vegetables are thoroughly cooked.

The chicken was done for me after an hour, but the carrots were still a bit crunchy.  I turned off the oven and left the casserole in there while i ran to the store, and when i came back the rice had soaked up all of the liquid and the carrots were just right.  The chicken had started to dry out, but only just, and still tasted great.  I have no idea why it tasted like stuffing... maybe the mushroom broth did it?  I should point out that there was  no coconut flavor, just lots of richness somehow. (I've heard coconut flavor can depend on the brand, i used Thai Kitchen Organic). Hopefully the good results of this experiment weren't a fluke, I'll definitely be trying it again!  This would also work well with other vegetables mixed in... I'm not very adventurous these days so I'll stick to carrots and zucchini for now.

*disclaimer - I had a cold and I'm pregnant, so my taste buds might be a little wacky.  Regardless of whether or not it really tasted like stuffing, I thought it was good and husband really liked it too!

Rawr!

I made another one, and it came out much better! Definitely will continue experimenting with this!

I'm a lion!  I have a tail, you just can't see it!

New fun!

 So my hobbies have turned more towards things that allow me to sit on the couch these days... and I was starting to get bored with baby blankets (all my friends are having babies too).  But when I was at the store buying more yarn the other day, I picked up a little book of animal patterns... this was so much fun to make!

It's supposed to be an elephant... but as husband says, it's a pig with big ears who told too many lies.

I gave him a silly face :)

 It was really easy to make all the pieces... not so easy to put them all together.  He's a little lopsided, because I ad-libbed (as usual) when I didn't have the right hook size for the pattern, and then ran out of one of the yarns.  Also, turns out I can't count and follow a pattern very reliably, so he's a little fatter than intended, and so are his legs.  And I purposely made his ears bigger, because he looked like a mouse with the recommended size!  All in all, he's got a lot wrong with him, haha, but it just adds to his character.  He's a great little elephant, I can't wait to give him to a deserving little kid!  And I can't wait to experiment with some more crocheted stuffed animals :)

In case you're interested, the pattern that I botched up came from this book.  Other amazon users have uploaded photos of their elephants... look much more like elephants than mine, haha.  But it's my first time!

Feeeeed Meeee.....

Remember this guy?

Cranky old man who lives in my stomach

I think he's even crankier now that he has a roommate.  Either that, or I'm going to give birth to Benjamin Button  (who doesn't want their child to be as good looking as Brad Pitt?).

Feeeeed us!!!  (my hair is longer, but MS paint still doesn't have the right color)

Moral of the story.... I'm hungry!!  Yaaaay almost lunchtime!  (does it count that I ate a piece of quiche about 15 minutes ago?  No, right?)

Maybe I'll cook this week

So I realize that I've been a pretty terrible blogger.  But I've got valid excuses!  If you want to hear them, listen up, because I don't plan to talk about them very often (at least not as the subject of any posts, they both deserve their own blogs, which most people would not be interested in reading).

1.  I'm Pregnant!!  YaaaaAAAAAayyyyyYYYY!!  (Like Snooki!)
2.  I've been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.  Booo!!  (Like JFK?)

Both seem to be related (at least hormonally), and both have meant that I haven't spent much time in the kitchen during the past few months.  I had lots of food aversions in the beginning (and was also a little bit afraid to eat), but now my appetite is on fire, and my medication seems to be improving my digestion.  I avoided the stove like the plague for a while (unless it was baking french fries or hash browns), but that's all changing fast, and at the rate I'm going the past few weeks I'll be cooking up a storm again in no time.  In fact, I'm thinking about baking some cookies in a few minutes, so that I can eat them all.  Seriously, all of them.

Here's how things have been going down:

Right after the positive pregnancy test -

• LOVED avocado, chicken, eggs, and chocolate milk.

First trimester -

• HATED chicken!!!  Could not be in the same room as it!  
• Also hated pretty much everything else, including chocolate (I never thought I'd see the day!)
• Crazy heartburn, so nothing spicy, and no tomatoes, peppers, or onions.
• Survived on noodles with parmesan cheese, peanut butter, and any type of fried potato.  Salt and Vinegar chips amazingly seem to cure nausea (even though the idea of them sometimes caaaauses nausea...).  Also Blueberry "KIND" bars were tolerable.
• Too tired to eat anyway.

Month 4 -

• Crazy craving for chicken nuggets.  Also into cream cheese, and still loving potato chips.  
• Less nauseous, but still tough to find anything appealing.
• I want spicy food, but still can't eat it.
• Less tired... but still really freaking tired.

Month 5 -

• I now dip the potato chips into the cream cheese.
• Ice cream!
• Loving fresh fruit (though because of colitis I can't eat much of it)
• Still not into any vegetables (colitis says "no" to a lot of these too)
• Eating most things again in small amounts (even chicken!), except spicy food.  But the idea of cooking still makes me tired.  Plus, tons of the stuff in my normal repertoire is either spicy or includes cooked tomatoes... not so great for heartburn.  So I need some energy and creativity!  The other night I boiled noodles, sauteed half a kielbasa, and mixed it all together with canned broccoli and cheese soup.  I called that cooking.  Not very delicious, but progress!

So as you can see, writing about life (and being hungry) has not been very high on my list.  But I think it might be coming back into favor sometime soon, as my appetite is going crazy!  And (some of) the plants in my garden are growing even faster than my baby (who is allegedly somewhere between a banana and a cantaloupe this week... though in my experience those are two very different sizes!)!