Macho, macho Duck – he is a winning sensation

When I’m driving to work in the wee hours of the morning (I leave the house at 5:20 am – well before day-light – I dream of the day this will change…), I pop my radio on to BBC Radio 1 (because I want to pretend I’m young and hip).  The DJ is a bloke called Dev, and I’ve enjoyed listening to him for the past few years now.  At about 6am, he’s got this feature called “I’m here all week” (I think?) where a member of the public gets to play DJ for the week, and picks one song a day to a particular theme.  Thursday is First Bought Thursday.  I think most people fudge this to make them sound a bit cooler, because I don’t think anyone’s first record is really going to be Take That, or Metallica or whatever.  I like to pretend that the first record/tape I bought was The Pretender’s Learning to Crawl.  That may be true in that it’s one of the earliest real music albums I requested to be purchased for me, but there were certainly others before that. 

My first album I remember having was a Disney album.  All the characters had their own songs, and I remember singing and dancing along.  The one I most remember, however, was Donald Duck’s song – Macho Macho Duck – sung, you guessed it, to the tune of Macho Macho Man.  And whenever I have anything remotely Mexican flavoured (which, in our current place of abode, must be home made – very sad place to live sometimes…) makes me want to sing “Nacho, Nacho Duck!”- Sometimes I do, out loud, if no one else is around.

So after a long day at work, knowing that I was hungry, and Husband was likely to be hungry too, and needing something quick, easy and relatively healthy, I polished off my quacking shoes and got on with this simple dinner (many thanks to The Kitchen Noob for the inspiration / reminder! http://thekitchennoob.blogspot.com/2011/11/beans-n-rice-rice-n-beans.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FBGBQn+%28The+Kitchen+Noob%29):

No Nacho Chicken Bowl

• 400 g chicken breast (or whatever protein you want – could omit if you wanted a no-chicken bowl…)
• 400 g tin black eyed peas, drained
• 400 g tin red kidney beans, drained
• 1 bag boil in a bag rice (I have issues with rice – don’t ask…)
• 1 200g jar salsa
• 1 400 g carton chopped tomatoes
• As much hot sauce as you can handle (I used Fat Cat brand – see below)
• 2 stock cubes
• for serving:  shredded cheese, avocado, nacho chips (if you wanted a Nacho chicken bowl!), sour cream/yoghurt, etc

1. Add stock cubes to large pot of boiling water and leave to dissolve
2. When stock is dissolved, add chicken breasts to stock to boiling stock to poach for as long as you like (I tend to leave mine for about 20 minutes, but have done longer – poaching leaves it tender no matter how long it’s in there – unless you go overboard)
3. Once chicken is cooked, set aside, and add rice to boiling stock
4. In a separate bowl, mix beans, tomato and salsa.
5. When chicken is cool enough to handle, chop and add to bean mix
6. Cover bean mix and microwave for about 5 minutes, until heated through (or the English equivalent – Piping hot!)
7. Season to taste with hot sauce.
8. When rice is done cooking, dish up into bowls, top with warm bean mix and toppings of choice.
9. Dinner is served.