Happy Saturday. I’m not letting a rainy Brooklyn forecast ruin my weekend. Tonight, I’m throwing my boyfriend a birthday party at Dave & Buster’s, where I’ll relive my middle-school glory days on the DDR machine and fuel up with homemade slab pie — because who said cake is the only thing you can stick a candle in? Here’s what else is on my to-do list…
Thank the high heavens that boring black handbags and basic hoops are out — and the “personality piece” is in. It’s me and my lime-green flower brooch against the world.
Dig through my storage bins for the beat-up leather hobo bag that carried me through my indie sleaze phase — and that has Fashion People’s seal of approval once again. Mary-Kate and Ashley would be so proud.
— Julia Reinstein / Writer, Culture & Leisure / Brooklyn, NY
Got One Pot and One Hour? You Can Make Abuelito’s Arroz con Pollo
theSkimm
Is there any meal more comforting than a big bowl of chicken and rice? No, there isn’t, particularly if it’s Adrianna Adarme’s recipe for Abuelito’s Arroz con Pollo. Adarme based the dish — which appears in her A Cozy Kitchen Cookbook, out this week — on one she remembers her grandfather Blasco making for her family. It has everything you love about classic arroz con pollo (read: spiced chicken, flavor-packed rice, and a confetti of bell pepper and peas), but this version leans a bit richer and creamier, almost risotto-like. And because “comforting weeknight dinner” and “washing one million bowls” don’t belong in the same sentence, rest assured: It comes together in one pot, so you can spend the rest of your evening catching up with loved ones… or watching The Traitors.
The Time Commitment: Just over an hour.
Key Tips: Adarme suggests checking on the mixture every 15 minutes or so while it’s cooking — it may need the occasional extra splash of broth to keep it moist. And feel free to double the recipe, since it makes amazing leftovers and freezes like a dream.
Other Takes: For more proof chicken and rice is everything nice, try…
Chicken Rice with Buttered Onions. Which is so cozy that creator Deb Perelman said she wanted “to take a nap in the pan.” That makes two of us.
Oyakodon. What came first, the chicken or the egg? We don’t care, as long as we get to eat this easy Japanese rice bowl that’s ready in less than half an hour.