Recipe: Creamy Baked Chicken and Rice

So I'm starting a whole new category of posts. Since I got hitched, I've been more inclined (or forced to) experiment in the kitchen. I'll be posting mostly easy recipes since I don't have the mad skillz to back up anything Top Chef-esque as of yet.

I'm starting off with a chicken recipe from the back of a Campbell's soup can, which I tweaked given availability of ingredients and personal preference.

Ingredients:
1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup
1 cup water
1/3 cup white wine (I just added this; we had some leftover white wine)
1/4 tsp Savory spice (it was supposed to be paprika, but our spice rack didn't have any paprika. Sigh. Next time.)
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 cup brown rice (it's supposed to be long-grain white rice, but this is a brown-rice household)
4 chicken breast fillets

1. Preheat oven to 475F.
2. In a baking dish, mix together soup, water, wine, Savory, and pepper.
3. Top with chicken fillets.
4. Sprinkle chicken with additional Savory and pepper.
5. Cover and bake for 45 minutes or until rice is cooked and chicken is done.

It's so easy! And my husband loved it!

Peri-peri Reasonable

Had dinner at Peri-Peri Chicken at Promenade in Greenhills. Was surprised at how reasonably priced their chicken was, considering the place was a casual-dining resto (there are waiters and servers so you don't have to fall in line to order). A 1/4 piece of chicken with two side dishes was only P145! That's even cheaper than Kenny Rogers, where you have to queue.

The resto's claim to fame is the peri-peri, which is actually African bird's eye chili, so this place is definitely for lovers of spicy food. It's the kind of spicy that you feel in your throat instead of in your mouth. You get to choose between "mild" and "hot" (H and I tried both), and you're given two bottles of the house sauce to adjust the taste as you please. The chicken is roasted over a spit fire, so you can bet it's healthier than your run-of-the-mill fast-food fried chicken.

(From top) My "peri mild" chicken served with corn and carrots as well as mashed potatoes; H's "peri hot" chicken (but it's bearable)--another side dish we ordered was the tortilla wrappers (or what looked like 'em--a hint of the basket they were served in can be seen) with salsa; bottles of the hot and mild sauces--the mild one actually seems more flavorful.

They've also got this prawn pasta that I didn't get to try, but which is supposedly one of their bestsellers. There were other tempting things on the menu, but I wanted to taste the stuff the resto was named after.

It's a good place to hang with friends when you wanna meet up without having to spend a bundle. And as you exit, the servers will see you off with a "Thank you peri-peri much!"