Ground Chicken & Rice Bowls
A quick & easy dinner recipe + summer anxiety
Hi!
We have officially tipped into May, which feels like standing at the top of a long slide that will drop us right into summer. If this fills you with equal parts excitement and dread, me too.
Teachers and schools really are the best! When they disappear for two months and my kids no longer have a place to hang out with friends, learn and play for 7 hours every day, the work/life balance at home gets really challenging.
On the other hand, after an exasperating morning trying to get my 9 year old up and out the door to school (we arrived a few minutes after the bell, without her teeth or hair brushed), I’m looking forward to an unscheduled summer.
Anyway. Let’s not talk about what a complete failure I am at combing my kid’s hair. Let’s talk about something that I can actually offer good advice about, dinner!
This Week’s Recipe: Ground Meat & Rice Bowls
This recipe is called “ground chicken and rice” on my blog but the truth is that you can use any type of ground meat. I’ve personally made it with ground chicken, turkey and pork - all three are good. Likewise, you don’t have to serve the meat over rice. It’s also good over grains or noodles.
The ground meat is flavored with green onion and garlic plus soy sauce, rice vinegar and honey. Although the flavors lean towards Asian cuisine, this meat is versatile. You can serve almost any type of vegetable with it to make a flavorful bowl.
You can prep everything for this meal ahead of time, if you’re into meal prep. Or, this is an easy meal that you can pull together in about 30 minutes if you stick with raw veggies.
Step 1: Cook a batch of rice, grains or noodles
Rice noodles (or angel hair pasta)
Step 2: Cook or prep your veggies
Go raw & crunchy - shredded cabbage and carrots, sliced cucumber
Go roasted - some combination of broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers
Also good - avocado, radish, spinach, beets
Step 3: Cook the ground meat and let everyone assemble their own bowl
I like to double the recipe for ground meat so we have leftovers for lunch or dinner the next day. If your kids will eat rice in their lunch, frozen microwavable rice has the perfect texture even when it’s in a lunchbox all day or kept in a refrigerator overnight. (I buy it at Trader Joe’s)
Find the full recipe here
Where to find Kitchen Skip Recipes: Most of the recipes I share can be found on my blog Kitchen Skip. You can also search the newsletter archives to view past newsletters. If you’re a paid subscriber, all of the bonus recipes are listed in my Substack recipe index.
Dinner Last Week
I’m always curious about what other families are eating. Aren’t you? I hope that my week of real life dinners will provide a few helpful recipes & cooking ideas for your family. Here’s what my crew ate last week:
Monday: Sorin made what the kids call “Dada’s stew” which is a simmered stew made from potatoes, mushrooms, zucchini and cauliflower with a little bit of coconut milk and spices. We usually serve it with Trader Joe’s samosas.
Ironically, my husband is a person who hates following recipes (even though his wife has a food blog full of them). When it’s his night to cook he relies on a small rotation of meals that he can cook by memory. I’m not knocking this strategy; I think it’s a good one. Sticking with a handful of meal that you know by heart makes life easier. My experience is that my kids don’t crave variety as much as I do. They like meals that are familiar, like “Dada’s Stew.”
Tuesday: I re-tested a recipe that paid subscribers will be getting next month and served it for dinner. Even my pickiest eater gave it a thumbs-up! The recipe is for sheet-pan tacos that are broiled in the oven, creating a crispy, chewy corn tortilla filled with taco meat, beans, melted cheese, crunchy cabbage and cilantro. Broiling tacos really simplifies taco night, and I also found that these quick tacos make great after-school snacks.
Wednesday: I tried another marinade for a pork loin, which I grilled and served with leftover vegetable stew from Monday night. The marinade sounded delicious (coconut milk, brown sugar, garlic, lime juice and cilantro blended into a smooth puree) but it actually gave the pork very little flavor, which was disappointing. I’m beginning to think that it’s better to serve pork loin with a fresh and vibrant sauce, rather than trying to add flavor with a marinade.
Thursday: I updated a recipe on my blog (Instant Pot broccoli risotto) and served it with chicken drumsticks. I brushed the drumsticks with oil, seasoned them with Lawry’s seasoning salt and baked at 425F for about 45 minutes. This was a very quick way to get dinner in the oven, but the drumsticks would’ve been better if the skin was crispier. Next time, I plan to try the crispy skin method from Recipe Tin Eats.
Friday: Lately my strategy has been to cook extra dinner portions on Thursday so we can eat leftovers on Friday. There’s something about a Friday night with a late sunset and warmer weather that makes me want to sit outside and have a cocktail instead of cook dinner. 🙂
Cookbooks
Any cookbook that comes into existence because the author left their stressful, unsatisfying life in New York and bought a beach house in Mexico is a cookbook I’m going to love. Mi Cocina by Rick Martinez is a very personal exploration of Mexican culture and food, through the eyes of a Mexican American who is fully and unapologetically embracing his heritage for the first time.
Part cookbook, part travelogue and part memoir, Mi Cocina does not have “quick and easy” recipes. Rather, you’ll want to save it for the weekend when you have time to make dishes like carne asada, aguachile and homemade salsa.
Thanks for reading! I’m on my way out the door to pick up the kids from school…one more thing I won’t miss during the summer is the full hour I spend every afternoon doing school pick-up.
Enjoy your weekend!
Jenny