Caribbean Chicken with Sweet Potatoes & Black Beans

Today’s dinner was an original Sweet Basil Kitchen recipe! We had invited my honey’s father for dinner and I put this dish together from what I had in my condo kitchen. I always keep beans and brown rice on hand, and I had just purchased a few sweet potatoes and other veggies. My father-in-law is on a healthy eating kick and recently lost 20 pounds, so I knew he would appreciate all the veggies!

Begin by cooking the rice in chicken broth. Long grain brown rice takes about 25 minutes to cook, which gave me enough time to chop my veggies, cook my chicken and make a batch of pumpkin oat-bran muffins.

Lightly brown 8-10 chicken fingers in a small amount of olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Finish cooking in a 350 oven for 15 minutes.

Chop one red bell pepper, 2 stalks of celery, 5 green onions, and a handful of flat leaf parsley. In the same pan that I browned the chicken in, add 2 T. olive oil and sauté peppers, onions and celery.

While veggies are cooking, peel and dice one large sweet potato.

Remove cooked veggies and add sweet potatoes to the same pan along with another tablespoon of olive oil. Brown sweet potatoes on each side, then add 1 c. orange juice, 2 T. lime juice and zest of one lime.The photo below shows the orange juice concentrate, then I added water to make one cup.

Bring to boil, cover and cook until potatoes are tender and have absorbed most of the liquid.

Add one can of drained black beans, veggies and sweet potatoes to cooked rice.

Cut chicken into bite-size pieces and mince parsley. Add to rice mixture. Reserve some parsley for garnish. If I would have had cilantro, I would have preferred using that herb. It is a good marriage with Caribbean flavors.

This dish had a myriad of flavors, but the citrus stood out as the best! There is a ton of fiber in this recipe, with the beans, whole grain brown rice and sweet potatoes! As if there wasn’t enough fiber, the pumpkin oat-bran muffins add a bunch more! I served a side salad of arugula, yellow pepper, cucumbers and topped with pomegranate seeds!

Gramps was more than pleased with a  home-cooked meal!

Caribbean Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Black Beans

2 c. whole grain brown rice, cooked in 4 c. of chicken broth
8-10 chicken fingers, seasoned, browned, baked and cut into pieces
1 red bell pepper, chopped
5 green onions, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped (if possible use cilantro instead, or both)
olive oil
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 c. orange juice
2 T. lime juice
zest of 2 limes
1 can black beans, drained

Sauté pepper, onions and celery in 2 T. olive oil. Remove from pan when done and add 1 T. olive oil and sweet potatoes. Brown on both sides, add juice and zest and bring to boil. Cover and continue cooking  until potatoes are tender and liquid is mostly absorbed. (may be necessary to add more juice) Add veggies, potatoes, beans, chicken and parsley to rice mixture. Garnish with additional parsley.