"Leftover-Makeover" Curry Chicken Fried Rice

I love taking leftovers and creating a new meal from them. One of my favorite left over makeovers is fried rice. I always have the ingredients on hand in my freezer and pantry so it’s a very easy go to dish for a last minute meal. I had Chinese white rice in the fridge and leftover teriyaki chicken in my freezer ( I made teriyaki marinated chicken cutlets for dinner a few weeks ago and diced up the left overs and froze them). This is a very simple recipe because you really don’t have to measure anything. Just dump in what you like and season to taste. Any chicken would work as well. I have used leftover roasted chicken many times and it’s delish.


Ingredients:

1 1/2 pints left over Chinese take-out white rice
1 Cup frozen peas, corn, red peppers, edamame
1 C. Frozen Broccoli
1 T. curry powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. red chili flake
1/3 C. soy sauce
1 egg
1 C. left over cooked chicken, diced

Preparation:

Coat the bottom of a large sauté pan with oil and set on medium heat. Add frozen vegetables and sauté for 2 minutes. Add white rice and continue to stir until heated through. Add curry, garlic, onion powder, red pepper flake and soy sauce and stir through. Next, make a well in the middle of the rice. Crack an egg into the well. Scramble egg, then mix into the rice. Add the cooked diced chicken and heat through.

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

A spin on the traditional Stuffed Peppers.  My kids have been begging me to make Stuffed Peppers for them all week.  I only had 2 green peppers in the house so I decided to tweak my recipe a bit and make this into a casserole!  It was a huge hit, no leftovers anywhere to be found.

Ingredients:

2 peppers (any color) chopped
1/2 lb  cooked brown rice
1 lb ground beef
1/2 chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon of ground ginger
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
1-6 oz can of tomato paste
1/2 can (6-8 oz) jellied cranberry sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese


Preparation:

In a large skillet brown ground beef until cooked through.  Drain oil and set meat aside.  Wipe out the skillet.  Heat oil in skillet and add onion, garlic, ginger sauté for one minute.  Add beef back in and combine with onion mixture.  Add tomato paste, water soy sauce and cranberry sauce and stir and cook for about 10 minutes until cranberry sauce is melted and evenly combined.  (If mixture is too thick, add a little more water).

Now to assemble the casserole:

Grease a 9x9 or similar size baking dish about 9x9 with non stick cooking spray.  Add raw chopped pepper at the bottom of the dish.

Next layer your brown rice.  I used the frozen brown rice from Trader Joes.  This makes it so easy.  Just open the frozen rice and dump in!

Now you can add your meat/sauce mixture on top of the rice.

Cover the casserole with aluminum foil and place in a preheated 375 degree oven for 30-40 minutes.

Remove from oven, uncover and sprinkle on parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese.  Place back in the oven uncovered for 10-15 min until cheese is melted and browned.  (I took mine a little too far and my cheese is too dark, next time I won't get distracted LOL)

Uncle Phil's Chicken

I got this recipe from my friend Farah quite a long time ago.  I bumped into her in the market on Valentines Day and I had no idea what to make for dinner.  She told me she was making Uncle Phil's Chicken so I decided to be a copy cat and make that too.  I'm so happy I did because it was really easy to make and totally delicious.  My whole family really loved it, especially the sauce.  This recipe makes a lot of extra sauce so my kids loved pouring it over their rice and extra over their cut up chicken.  The recipe calls for chicken gravy mix but the market didn't have any so I opted for brown gravy mix and I think it was really good.  Next time I'm going to try it with chicken gravy mix to see which we like better.

*Farah usually makes the rice dish (recipe below) to go with this chicken.  I used plain brown rice but I think I'm definitely going to try Farah's rice dish next time instead.

Ingredients:

4-6 Boneless chicken breasts
Breadcrumbs
Egg
Oil
2 packages of chicken gravy mix (I used brown gravy mix)
2 cups of chicken broth
1 cup of white wine
1 box sliced mushrooms (optional)
1 tablespoon butter

Preparation:

You may want to flatten the breasts a bit if they are really thick or slice them through the middle. Dredge chicken in egg. (I season my egg with a bit of parsley flakes, salt, pepper and garlic powder) Next, dredge them in breadcrumbs. Heat up about 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet/sauté pan. Add more oil as cooking if needed. Sauté the breasts until golden. (don't over cook them, keep the heat fairly low, they will be in the oven for a good 45 minutes and you dont want them dry.) Save the drippings in the pan when you are done. Place cutlets in a 9 x 13 pan.  I usually pour off a bit of the oil, leave about ½ T in the pan. Add the broth to the skillet, all the while stirring so that the bits will loosen a bit, add the wine and begin whisking in the two packets of gravy. Maintain a nice medium level of heat and dont dump in the gravy to be sure you dont get clumps. It should begin to thicken and bubble after a few minutes.  Sauté the sliced mushrooms in 1T of butter until cooked through, sprinkle over cutlets. Then, pour the gravy mixture over the cutlets.
Bake at 325 for 45 minutes, serve over rice.

Rice Recipe
Ingredients:

1 medium onion chopped
1 stick of butter
2 cans of broth
1/2 package of frozen chopped spinach, well drained
3 chicken bullion cubes
1 1/2 cups of Uncle Ben's converted rice

Preparation:

Sauté onion in butter until transparent. Add 2 cans of broth, spinach, bullion cubes, and rice. Simmer on stove covered for about 25 to 30 min until liquid has been absorbed.