Baked Chicken and Pumpkin Pilaff

    This is a great quick and easy recipe, great for at sea if you have a gimbling oven and the recipe can be varied to be made vegetarian and other vegetables could be added, for example make it Parmesan, spinach and grilled tomato risotto.

Great for entree, lunch, or as a main course, or as quick and easy crew food.



Crown pumpkin on vine

Baked Chicken and Pumpkin Pilaf

Ingredients

2 cups of Arborio rice

5 cups chicken stock

60g butter

700g pumpkin peeled and diced small this is about 1/2 a medium pumpkin

Olive oil

3 chicken breast fillets

½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Salt and Pepper

2 Tablespoons fresh parsley chopped

Method

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius

Place rice, stock, butter, pumpkin in oven proof dish and cover with lid or foil which is tightly crimped around the edges.

  Bake 45 minutes or until rice is soft (this will depend on your oven, my oven it is gas and took            1 hour).

While the rice is cooking, pan-fry chicken breasts in olive oil and cook until cooked through this will be variable depending on size and thickness of chicken breast.  When cooked through dice or slice chicken into bite size portions.

Remove the pilaf from the oven and stir through chicken, Parmesan, salt and pepper and parsley.

Serve pilaf immediately

Serve 4 or 8 as an entree

Note: this can be made into a vegetarian dish by changing the stock to vegetable stock and omitting the chicken and adding eggplant, grilled tomatoes, spinach or any other vegetable, plus use blue cheese such as Gorgonzola, endless possibilities.