Meal 17: Chicken Thighs with Rice & Cannellini Beans in a Spicy Sauce

An 8½” x 2″ bowl full – just enough for me but probably enough for 2 ladies!
CALORIE DENSITY: 17% = 843kcal/(1236ml x 4)
 (Compare with Sugar: 95%, butter: 180%)
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COST: £1.26 (So don’t tell me that eating healthy food is expensive!)
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INGREDIENTS
  • Chicken Thighs (314g): 325kcal(350ml) Iceland Chicken Thighs 1100g for £2.19 x 2 packets for 7 meals = 62p
  • Rice 300ml (250g): 261kcal(300ml) Asda SP Long Grain Rice 1kg packet 42p =3p
  • Cannellini Beans (235g): 200kcal(300ml) Asda Chickpeas 400g Can 55p
  • Spicey Sauce (286g): 0kcal(286ml) Home made spicey sauce= 2p
  • Potato Powder 34ml (17g): 57kcal (17ml) Asda SP Instant Mashed Potato 120g packet 28p = 4p
INSTRUCTIONS
Cooking the meat:
  1. Pour 2000ml of water into your slow cooker. Add  the following herbal flavouring powders measured in tea spoons: 6tsp Mild Curry, 3tsp Piri Piri, 3tsp salt, 3tsp Turmeric and 1tsp Black Pepper. Mix until the powders are well distributed in the water.
  2. Add the 22 chicken thighs making sure they are completely covered by the liquid.
  3. Leave for a few hours to defrost then cook for 7 hours on low. I use a timer to turn the slow cooker on at 1:30 BST which is when my half price Economy 7 electricity kicks in! Note the pictures at the bottom of the page. The timer automatically turns off at 8:30 in the morning and I let the slow cooker cool down until noon.
  4. Using a draining spoon divide the chicken thighs into 7 plastic containers suitable for storing in the fridge.
  5. Add a packet of potato powder to the slow cooker to thicken the cooked-in sauce (gravy) and mix it in well,
  6. Add equally to the plastic containers (should be enough to just cover the average of 3 chick thighs) and put the containers in the fridge when they are cold.

Cooking the rice

  1. Pour a 300ml mug of rice into a large plastic container and add 3 mugs of water.
  2. Do not add salt to increase the boiling point of the water as this reduces the osmotic pressure which reduces the amount of water the rice can absorb.
  3. Heat in microwave for 10 mins on 800W and 15mins on 180W (using a single program if you can) with the lid on to prevent the water boiling away.
  4. Rinse the rice by placing the plastic container without the lid under a cold running tap until the water goes clear and then drain off the water without using a colander just to prove that you don’t need one! You can tell when you have rinsed it sufficiently because the cloudy water becomes clear. This rinsing doesn’t just remove the starch to prevent the rice clumping but also reduces the amount of arsenic to a very low level.
  5. This provides nearly 4 portions of rice (1150ml) so measure out a 300mm mug of rice to use now and save the rest in the fridge for later use.

Preparing a meal

  1. Place a 300mm mug of rice in a bowl 8½” by 2″.
  2. Drain the water from the can of cannellini beans and add to the rice.
  3. Add some gravy from a chicken thigh container and mix in the bowl – just over half of it should be fine – but the fat calories in the gravy have already been counted so there’s no need to hold back if you like a meal to be soup-like as I do!
  4. Place an average of 3 chick thighs on top and microwave at 800W for 6 minutes.
  5. If necessary add salt and black pepper to taste and serve.
  6. Remove the skin from the chick thighs as it provides only fat calories which you do not need!
I use Piri Piri flavouring which is the same as Peri Peri which is African bird’s-eye chilli. This means the chicken thighs taste like they come from Nandos but much less expensive of course!
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I use potato powder to thicken the gravy because wheat flour is a highly processed food which cannot be part of the natural low density way of eating which excludes all processed food. Wheat flour also contains gluten which brings on arthritis in my knees!
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This is an enormous meal – just right for me – but probably enough for 2 ladies! If you are serving more than one person and you prefer to serve the chicken thighs, rice, cannelloni beans  and gravy separately please do so. I prefer to mix it all up and eat it as directed above.
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I add turmeric to the sauce because it has excellent anti-cancer properties which are enhanced by the presence of black pepper. If you prefer to serve the ingredients of the meal separately as mentioned above, you can sprinkle the turmeric & black pepper directly on the rice to give it a pleasing colour. Some people  add turmeric to the water they cook the rice in but this reduces the osmotic pressure in the same way that adding salt does so it’s not a good idea.
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This meal tastes equally delicious with any of the pulses although I have to say that chickpeas are my favourite! The pulses I regularly use are: chickpeas, butter beans, cannellini beans, borlotti beans, haricot beans, black-eyed beans, pinto beans, black beans and kidney beans.
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Use a timer to run a slow cooker overnight
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SIMILAR MEALS WITH DIFFERENT PULSES (Click to zoom then press Esc to close)​

Cannellini beans

Borlotti beans

Kidney beans

Chickpeas

Black beans with sweetcorn instead of rice

Chickpeas with sweetcorn instead of rice served differently on a 10″ plate
NB
Sweetcorn is identical to rice in terms of calorie density so may be used instead of rice in any recipe. All that changes is the price which is 32p extra:
  • Sweetcorn 300ml (260g): 261kcal(300ml) Asda SP Sweetcorn in Water 326g can 35p
  • Rice            300ml (250g): 261kcal(300ml) Asda SP Long Grain Rice 1kg packet 42p =3p
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