A Lesson in Confidence

Friday night I had a huge lesson in confidence: I used my pressure cooker by myself for the first time.  Well, mostly by myself--Avi, the neighbor was with me, but she only knows about pressure cookers from hearing them while her grandma is cooking.  So, we learned together!  I bought a whole chicken at "Supermercado España," with the intentions of cooking it in the pressure cooker that Ms. Beulah bought me before I came.  And, with great fear & trembling, the pressure rose (as did my blood pressure for exactly 20 minutes.)

I'm pretty sure my face looked like this the entire time.  This is my two-burner electric stove I'm using right now.

When I wasn't staring at my watch, I was trying to guesstimate exactly how much an overweight cut up chicken should take.  It ended up coming out perfect, and  probably the juiciest chicken I've ever made.

 

Friday night it was served on fresh bread (from the store--no way did I make that!) with mayonnaise & tomato.
Saturday, brought a similar chicken/bread combo
Sunday I got to "eat out" twice, so I didn't get to eat it.
Monday, I made an Amazing Soup.

Carrie's Amazing Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

cooked rice

1 T olive oil

3 carrots, chopped small

1/2 medium onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, diced

some broccoli (not really sure how much it was, but it wasn't a lot--I think there were things living in it, so I picked through what looked good), cut up small

chunks of chicken pulled off the bone

broth from cooking chicken

water

salt & pepper

fresh spinach

lemon (opt)

Regiano cheese (opt)

1.  If you have to make your rice, start it first. 2.  Saute the first 5 ingredients in a saucepan.  3. Heat up broth, add water until the broth is the color you like, & add sauteed vegetables.  4.  Add cooked chicken.  5.  Add cooked rice.  6.  Add salt & pepper to taste.  7.  A few minutes before you're going to take it off the burner, throw in some cut up fresh spinach.  It should still be green when you take it off the burner.  8.  I squeezed the juice from 1/2 a lemon into my bowl, and added in some Regiano cheese.  Somehow the combo worked tonight. 

Enjoy!