A new twist for rice

     That's right - rice.  We love rice here in the condo...in fact, right now we have 4 kinds of rice:  brown, medium-grain white rice, arborio rice and calrose rice.  Brown is our go-to rice when we have the time to cook it.  White is, of course, what we use when we're in a hurry.  Arborio is used for making risotto - it is a very short-grained rice.  Calrose is used for sushi.  So see, they're all necessary!  Tonight I was in a hurry.  I'd gone biking after work and was, of course, starving!
     Everyone knows 1 cup of rice is cooked in 2 cups of liquid...but what liquid to use?  Regular old chicken broth?  Maybe.  BUT I looked in the cabinet and found a can of lite coconut milk.  Hey, why not?  We'll take a Thai twist on dinner.  So I measured out 1 cup of rice (had to use a little Arborio because I was about 1/4 cup short of regular white).  I heated the can of lite coconut milk and enough chicken broth to equal 2 cups total liquid in a pan.  When it came to a boil, I added the rice, turned the heat down, and set the timer for 20 minutes. In the meantime...
     When I left to go biking, I got a package of chicken tenders out of the freezer to thaw.  I took those (once thawed) and coated them with Thai spicy peanut sauce (I used enough to cover the bottom of a plate) mixed with about 1 tbsp soy sauce.  While they were hanging out, I fired up the grill.  These cook SO fast!  Once the grill was hot (it's propane so it gets hot pretty fast) I put the tenders on the grill for 2 minutes.  Then I flipped them and cooked for another 2.  I added a little more peanut sauce on top (from the bottle, not the raw chicken plate) and cooked for 1 more minute.  Seriously, that's it!  They were done.
     The rice turned into a wonderfully creamy dish in its 20 minutes of cooking.  It needed a little something else, so, in sticking with my Thai theme, I added about 1/4 cup of cilantro.  You could also add chopped roasted peanuts (like pad thai) or even a bit of lemon juice or lemon grass. 
     I also made a spinach salad, but it had nothing to do with the Thai dishes... ;)
     So there you have it - Coconut Rice and Chicken Satay in 30 minutes!