Thursday, July 25, 2002
Experiments in cooking
“Mmmm, this is delicious,” said Spring. “Is that cinnamon I taste?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think I got a bit too much in there though.” I wasn't entirely satisfied with the results. Spring, however, seemed to like it enough. “Can you taste what else I added?”
Chicken and Orange Rice
An experiment in cooking
Ingredients:
- one can Cream of Mushroom
- one can Cream of Celery
- one can (cup) orange juice
- 1 ½ cups rice
- 1 teaspoon tyme
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- pinch of cinnamon
- several black peppercorns
- chicken pieces
- Preheat oven to 375°F
- Mix all ingredients except chicken in a large bowl (careful with the cinnamon).
- Pour ¾ of mixture into a large casserole dish.
- Add chicken to casserole dish.
- Pour remaining mixture over chicken.
- cover casserole dish with lid and place into oven for 1 ½ hours.
- Serve and enjoy.
Spring took another taste, and pursed her lips in thought. “No,” she said.
“Orange juice.”
“Get out of here!” She took another bite. “Really? Orange juice?”
“Yup. I'm glad you like the experiment though.”
“When I experiment, it never turns out good,” she said. “What made you mix orange juice and cinnamon?”
“Well, I had a craving for orange, so I thought I'd use orange juice and since cinnamon is used with apples, and an apple is a fruit, and so is an orange, I thought they might go nicely together.”
“But orange juice?”
“Well, I get sometimes get Orange Beef at the Chinese restaurant so it's not unheard of.”
“But in rice?”
“When have you ever gone to a Chinese restaurant and not gotten rice?”
“But they don't put it in the rice,” she said.
“Well … yea,” I said.
“I would have never thought to put cinnamon and orange juice in the rice.”
“I'll have to leave out the cinnamon next time,” I said. I didn't quite like the taste; it wasn't bad mind you, just … a bit … off. It would be something that would have gotten shot down rather quickly on Iron Chef no doubt.
“Well, try less next time,” Spring said. “What happened? Did too much fall out when you added it?”
“Yea, a rather large cloud of cinnamon clumped out.”
“Yes, that happens to me too.” She took a few more bites. “But it is good … ”
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