Green Rice Under Eggy L-fredo

There's certain things that have a rule of thumb for cooking.  One such thing is rice, which you typically cook with 1.5-2x water to rice.  However, we're going to ignore that and see if we can make it a bit differently.  

Ingredients:

1 cup Rice

1 cup Water

2 Eggs

1/4 bottle Jalapeno Salsa

1 jar Alfredo Sauce

Instructions:

Add rice and water to a pan and cook on medium heat

When the water has been absorbed/evaporated stir in eggs

Stir occasionally until eggs are cooked

Stir in salsa and cook for a minute

Add alfredo

Increase heat to reduce the alfredo

Stir occasionally to avoid burning

Remove from heat when the alfredo has reduced

This didn't turn out at all the way that I'd intended for it to.  To the point that while I had been initially been planning on naming this entry "Poorly Fried Rice with a Jalapeno Alfredo Finish", but after seeing the final result I realized that I should name it something more representative of the final product, and the fact that it looks like porridge, or gruel.  The poorly designation from the original name is still applicable though.  I'd been hoping that some of the alfredo's liquidity would be absorbed into the rice while I was reducing it, but I'm pretty sure that it mostly just evaporated, as the rice was still a bit on the harder side.  The flavor was pretty good though, with the salsa providing a bit more kick to the meal.

I probably could have used more eggs though, because while I could occasionally taste the eggs, they weren't spread throughout the dish in a consistent manner.  If I were to make this again I think that I would use about half as much sauce, and mix it into the water before cooking the rice to get it in earlier on.  I'd also use a proper amount of water.

Pork Zucchini Smash

I made a full loin's worth of Mesquite-O Bites for two holiday parties that I attended this winter.  They went over decently well at both events, but afterwards I was left with a bunch of pieces of excess pork that weren't quite big enough to warrant their own cracker.

Ingredients:

1 container leftover Mesquite Porkloin Pieces

1 package 4 Cheese Mashed Potatoes

4 cups of water

1 bag Frozen Zucchini Slices

Instructions:

Add Zucchini to a pan and begin cooking

Boil 4 cups of water

Remove from heat

Stir Mashed Potatoes into boiling water

Reheat Pork

Combine the Zucchini and Pork into Potatoes

This worked out pretty well.  The overall ratio of ingredients was a bit heavier on the potatoes and lighter on the pork than what I'd have gone for had I been making the recipe for itself rather than for getting rid of some leftover pork.  I suppose I could have separated some of the potatoes out before putting the other ingredients in, but it's a bit hard to gauge that when staring into the depths of a stockpot.  The pork and zucchini worked fairly well mixed into the potatoes, but I'm not sure that this is a meal I'd make again.

Swamp Gas Chicken

This had been intended to be Ginger Ale Chicken, but after I mixed the mix, it looked like something out of a swamp, so I opted to run with that.  Anyways, I'd been planning on using my crockpot for a while, and one of the things it does well is shredded chicken.  Also beer brats.  I might have remade the beer brats, but with the onion on bottom, and including the pepper on top.  The onion actually cooked this time, but the pepper sorta dissolved.  Anyways, back to the chicken.

Ingredients:

1 package Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

1 12oz bottle of Ginger Ale

1 tblspoon Chili Powder

1 tblspoon Ground Cumin

1 tblspoon Ground Mustard

1 tblspoon Minced Garlic

Instructions:

Mix spices into ginger ale

Place chicken into a crock pot

Pour swamp gas mixture over the chicken

Cook on Low for 8 hours

Remove chicken from the crockpot and shred with a potato smasher

This turned out better than I'd expected.  The swamp gas mixture gave the chicken a slightly sweet flavor, with a bit of a kick to go along with it.  Despite the shredding of the chicken, it was still a bit drier than I'd been hoping, but this was probably due to the fact that I didn't add it back to the crockpot after I'd shredded it.  On the subject of shredding it, the potato masher did an exemplary job of shredding the chicken.  It was a bit slow going at first, but after progressing past the "skin" that formed around the chicken after stewing  for several hours, it was easy going.  By the end of the mashing, it had a granularity somewhere between where I start fork shredding and when I finish fork shredding, but it also took considerably less time, so I'd say this is a pretty solid shredding methodology.

Boozy Mac and Ham

Knowing that I was going to have plenty of leftover ham from the innards of the bowls I decided to take steps in order to ensure that I'd have some way to use it.  And by that I mean I saw that boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese were on sale and thought to myself, "ham is kinda like hot dogs, so ham and mac & cheese should go together like hot dogs and mac & cheese".  Thus the seeds for the third meal from that grocery store trip were planted.

Ingredients:

1 box Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

6 cups of Water

1/4 cup Butter

1/4 cup Milk

1 bag of Ham Scoopings

1 container Pepper/Onion Medley

1 container Beer Brat Onions

Instructions:

Bring water to a boil

Add ham and noodles

Cook for 7 minutes

Drain

Add cheese packet, butter, milk, and vegetables

Stir until even

This turned out more or less the way I'd planned it.  When boiled into the macaroni, the ham was similar (though somewhat fancier) than the hot dogs it was intended to replace.  The onions and peppers and onions weren't an intended part of this, but they worked well with it.  The onions from the beer brats gave the dish a slight beery flavor, which worked in the end.  They were still a bit on the hard side, but that was a problem with the earlier recipe, rather than this one.