Spanish Rice: 1000 Calorie Counted Recipes Challenge

This part of my 1000 Calorie Counted Recipes Challenge, where I’m aiming to cook every recipe from The 1000 Calorie Counted Recipes by Carolyn Humphries. It’s an amazing book… but there are no pictures!

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Spanish Rice | 450 calories per serving | Serves 4

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Ingredients

• 175g roast chicken, shredded
• lemon juice
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 red onion, diced
• 225 g rice (I used Basmati)
• 600ml vegetable stock
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 100g frozen peas
• 10-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• salt and pepper
• chives to garnish

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How to Make Spanish Rice

1. Shred the roast chicken, squeeze over lemon juice and set to the side.
2. Spray a little oil into a large frying pan (one that has a lid) and gently cook the green pepper, red pepper and red onion until slightly softened, which should take 5 minutes or so over a gentle heat.
3. Tip the rice into the pan and stir around for a minute.
4. Add the vegetable stock and turmeric.
5. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Add the chicken, frozen peas, cherry tomatoes and spring onions. Season to taste.
7. Put the lid back on and cook for a further 10 minutes, or until the rice is thoroughly cooked through.
8. Garnish with chives or other herb of your choice (the book recommends parsely, but I despise it).

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The Verdict

Flavour: 2 – could have done with chilli
(1= flavourless, 5= delicious)

Satisfaction: 3 – plenty of it, but needed more flavour
(1= unsatisfying, 5= satisfying considering low cal!)

Ease of Preparation: 5
(1= difficult, 5= easy)

Aftermath Factor: 5
(1= tons of washing up, 5= one pot wonder)

I felt like this recipe was tasty, well-textured and filling. I would definitely cook it again and the principles of a one-pot veggie and rice dish is one I’ll look to adapt in future for quick, flavoursome, healthy meals.

The original recipe only calls for boneless chicken meat – I used leftover garlicky, herby roast chicken and added extra lemon juice to moisten it up. The fact it was previously roasted probably added a few calories, but I feel it also added some crucial flavour and proved to be quite frugal! A bit of chilli or cayenne pepper would have given this dish a kick, which I think it could have done with.

This recipe says that it serves 4, so we only ate half of it and will be freezing the remainder in portions to take with us to work for lunches. Win!

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This part of my 1000 Calorie Counted Recipes Challenge <- click the link if you want to find out what it’s all about and see the recipes I’ve already tried. Please note that I tinker with recipe ingredients and meander from the method – the recipe above will deviate slightly from the original book and the method is just the way I happened to cook it this time!