That's What Bob's Cooking: Chicken and Rice Pilaf wrapped in Filo, with Creamed Corn

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Chicken and Rice Pilaf wrapped in Filo, with Creamed Corn

Tonight’s dinner was a recreation of a recipe I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks. I read somewhere a recipe for Chicken and Rice Pilaf wrapped in Filo.

It was a recipe for an entire pie, but all I could think about was individual “pie”. So I made rice, grilled chicken the wrapped it in filo. It was really, really good.

1 cup rice (any type, or mixture. I used a wild Thai blend)

2 cups veggie broth

½ cup diced carrots

¼ cup nuts, toasted (I used hazelnuts and pine nuts)

Salt and pepper, to taste

2 Chicken breasts, grilled to 160F, thinly sliced

1 pkg Filo dough

Olive oil

Boil rice in water, with lid on until done, approx. 20 minutes. When rice is cooked, add in carrots and toasted nuts. Add Salt and pepper to taste.

While Rice is cooking, grill chicken until just done 160F. Chicken will not be white, it will be slightly pink, but still food safe. This way the chicken will still be moist when it comes out of the oven.

Allow both the rice and chicken to cool.

For Filo, lay out I sheet of filo, and oil it, place another sheet of filo on top. Continue layering 4 sheets of dough.

Scoop out about 1/3-1/2 cup of rice into the center of the dough.

Place about 4-5 sliced (or so) of the chicken breast on top.

Wrap the filo around the mixture. Bake at 400 for approx. 30 minutes or until golden brown.

In addition to this I made

“Fresh Cream Corn”,

another recipe adaption from a great friend (Kim Bostrom)

6 ears of corn

¼ cup of cream

1 T dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Strip kernels of corn off cob. (Check out my new kitchen gadget!!

Add in cream and seasonings. Warm up, but don’t bring to a boil.

1 comment:

Doris H.May 12, 2011 at 9:41 AM
Hi Bob,
I'm an old neighbor of Craig's. I lived across the street from him from the time he was 3 years old until he left Ft. Payne. My name is Doris Hobbs.

Just wanted to suggest that next time you cook corn, try just clipping the top of the corn kernels with a very sharp knife. Then go around and clip the rest of the kernel off, then finally take the sharp edge of the knife at an angle, and scrape the cob. This will release the "heart" of the corn that is very sweet and creamy. This is the way my mother did cream corn. She never used cream in it. It was always very creamy, this way. Try it. Accordiing to the type of corn you use, you may or may not have to use a little corn starch to thicken it. It is delicious this way.

Saw Linda at Wal-Mart last night. She is looking forward to coming and staying for 5 weeks with you all very soon. Hope you all have a great time!

Tell Craig 'hello" for me.

Doris Hobbs
Rainsville, AL
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My Complete Profile

I was born and raised on the East side of Portland Oregon, by two native and second generation, Oregonians, my Mom and Dad (Jack and Joan). Oregon, and the Northwest are deep in my blood. That being said, I have always had an interest in cooking. I would love to add a warm loving story here about how my Mom nurtured my love of cooking by setting me up on or near the counter top to help with whatever she was cooking. Well, that's not exactly the case.

Being a child of the 70's and 80's, I had a great exposure to classic foods like Spam, Tang, Rice-a-Roni and Hamburger Helper. While many of these premade, sodium roller coaster, treats where regulars on our table, my Mom would have to hold the title as "casserole queen". Casseroles are her favorite and her specialty. Whereas, my Dad was more of a spur of the moment kind of cook. His creations included many of the items from our makeshift pantry. Sometimes, i think he was thinking, "the more ingredients, the better it'll be!". I think my first attempt at cooking would have to have been making cookies, either peanut butter (with the criss-cross fork tine print on top), or chocolate chip cookies. Over the years I have made so many of both of these recipes, I have surely lost count.

During middle school, my Mom encouraged me to take Home Economics, thinking that all kids, boy or girl, should know how to cook out in this world. This sparked a growing interest in cooking. So when I entered my junior year of High School, at David Douglas, I enrolled in the culinary arts program, we called it Food Services I. This was a class that had been offered many years before, where the students ran a restaurant, The Kilt, during the lunch periods. Unfortunately, since the class had not been offered in several years, so we didn’t have enough students to open the restaurant, that year. Within the first few weeks of this class, my instructor asked if I'd like to be involved in an outside "club" (kind of like a version of Eagle Scouts) that was mentored by local business owners. It sounded interesting so I joined (not to mention it got me out of the first 2 periods of the day).

At our first meeting I was approached by Sylvia Poesdel, the owner of the Portland landmark restaurant, Sylvia's Italian Restaurant & Dinner Theatre. She asked me if I would be interested in an afterschool job, coming to work for her to learn the cooking/chef trade on the job. I jumped at the chance and started in October of 1985. During my senior year I rejoined the culinary arts program (Food Services II) and this year we were able to reopened the restaurant, which the rest of the students voted me to manage. I just absolutely loved it! I worked at Sylvia's until after I graduated, in 1989. I learned a lot about the restaurant industry, and I would have to say it would be one of just a few life altering jobs I have had throughout my career.

After high school, while I was working at Sylvia's, I applied to culinary arts school. The Two things kept me from continuing my career in culinary arts, were financial and having worked out in the field, I saw so many negative attributes to being a chef, I decided that since I love to cook, I wanted it to be a hobby, and not a drag to go work each day.

When I left Sylvia's, I worked at a hotel, then Safeway. From there I joined Fred Meyer in the Service Deli, and was quickly promoted to a manager. During the next 8 years, I worked throughout the Portland and Southern Oregon areas. In 1998, I earned a promotion to the regional specialist position (District Manager) in Seattle. During this career move, I learned so much about the Food Service industry. I was charged to develop a new service salad case program, as well as work on a new catering program. I had the opportunity to work with manufacturers to develop these new programs.

In 2000, I met the love of my life, Craig. I also, moved from the food service program to the grocery department as an assistant manager. In the capacity I learned to develop my management skills as well as managing inventory. By being the best in my category, I earned the position of manager, where I moved from store to store cleaning up and reorganizing as I went. I also was entrusted with training future Food managers for the region. At which point I was pursued by another company to run a store for them, and enter back into the restaurant industry. During these 3 years, I learned the Restaurant Supplier side of the business. While I enjoyed the time I spent in this opportunity, I yearned to go back to the Grocery industry, and spend more time with my first love, cooking, and writing about my adventures….in the kitchen!