Chicken Stew

CHICKEN STEW!

So one of my favorite things to do on lazy days when the sky is gray is made a big pot of steaming stew.  I don't have any real recipes of my own.  Rather, I just take things from here and there around the kitchen and throw them into a pot.  I'm no mad scientist or anything.  I have a pretty sound judgement regarding what things may or may not pair well together.  There was only one time I made some stew I wasn't really feeling, and that's because I made the mistake of thinking flour could thicken it up.  It did thicken up but it left the stew vapid.  

This here is a chicken stew.  Like I said before, I just go with my gut (obviously the best thing to listen to when you're hungry).  I don't weigh anything out. I just eyeball it and taste along the way, but I'll give you my estimate as to the proportions.  Here is the recipe:

1.5 pound of white skin potatoes

1 pound of grilled chicken breast 

1 cup of rice

1 cup of black beans

1/2 of a large yellow onion

1 small green pepper

So, FIRST, I cut up the potatoes in half and then cut that half in half, threw them in the pot.  I put a pretty significant amount of McCormick seasoning (Spicy Montreal) and Mrs. Dash (Caribbean Citrus), a little salt (maybe a table spoon), chili powder and black pepper.

I let the potatoes boil until they were were soft enough to break up easily as I stir in the other ingredients and then I added the rice and beans.

I then took the chicken breasts and cut them into half inch strips and then cut those strips in half and threw it in the pot.  The chicken was grilled on my George Foreman and seasoned with the Caribbean Citrus.

I had waited until this point to put the green peppers and onions in because I like them to be crunchy.  They'll probably get soft eventually but for the first bowl, its just how I like it.

By this time, and after countless successions of stirring, the potatoes started to break up and gave the base of the stew more thickness.  I also happened upon a packet of powdered cheese, like you would use for Kraft Mac and Cheese.  I threw that in with some buffalo sauce and a little hot sauce and voila ! Bon appetite! 

I guess I was trying to go with a southwestern quesadilla type stew.  It wasn't spot on with that theme, but its still delicious.