Condiment Inspiration

My son has recently discovered that his favorite meat is chicken.  For some reason, I was craving chicken too this evening, so I got two packages of Triple S chicken thighs from the freezer.  I was wondering what to do with them, standing gazing into the fridge for inspiration, when my eye fell on my condiments.  I’ve been on a mission to minimize our condiments recently, so I scanned the small bottles and jars for the oldest, saddest representatives.  One tall jar stood out, only about an eighth full of green olives; the rest was briny olive juice and dejected looking pimentos.  That's the one, I thought!

For some strange reason, I have a bunch of recipes for Moroccan chicken stew.  I glanced at a couple of them and realized that they all had some base ingredients in common:  green olives, garlic, diced tomatoes, broth, white wine or lemon juice and bay leaves.  I dumped in the olives and juice, some white wine (1/2 cup, I think), some garlic, a can of diced tomatoes, four bay leaves, a huge bunch of chopped fresh thyme.  I realized afterwards I forgot to throw in a cinnamon stick, the flavor that really makes the dish exotic.

Not one to waste time on a Monday evening, I threw all of this over the chicken without browning it (when it’s a stew anyway, I just don’t see the point) in my giant cast iron cauldron; I heaved it into a 425 degree oven for an hour (the chicken was still partly frozen; once again, I just don’t see the point of defrosting it completely for a stew). I then sliced up some beets from our shares, tossed them in olive oil and spread them in a shallow baking dish to go in at 30 minutes.  After a frantic scouring of the pantry shelves for couscous, I finally found some quinoa instead.  I felt like I had successfully combined the flavors of North Africa, Eastern Europe, and South America—a global meal success!

Now, I wonder what I can do with that half-full jar of jalapeños….

My inspiration