This week’s challenge ingredients include:

A bag of brown rice: I usually buy the microwavable rice because I have extreme performance anxiety when it comes to cooking rice on a stovetop. I currently have bigger issues to tackle than overcoming my fear of cooking rice the old fashioned way, so if I don’t use this in a risotto context, it’s going into a bunch of balloons to be made into stress balls.

A wine bottle filled with frozen chicken stock: Yep, I’m a grown up who makes stock and drinks wine. I mean, I only made stock once and the wine I drink is trash, but still. I made this after roasting a chookie months ago and promptly forgot about it.

Goat’s cheese that had a questionable tinge to it: I bought one jar of marinated goat’s cheese ages ago and kept the oil once the cheese was gone. I would then buy cheaper cheese and marinate it in the leftover oil, because I’m thrifty like that.

One thawed chicken breast I needed to use before it went bad: I have a terrible habit of overzealously thawing meat when I haven’t properly planned my meals. I’m getting help.

Here’s how to do what I did:

Slice one chicken breast into thin pieces in a vague diagonal motion. Sprinkle a bunch of salt on to a plate and lay the raw chicken atop it and cover with more salt. This is some last-minute tenderising which may or may not do anything, but at least you’re trying.

Next, slice the white chunk of a leek, going right up until it gets to the mid-green part where the leaves start to fan out. Set aside in a bowl.

Slice one large onion and dice three or four cloves of garlic. Set aside.

Then, slice about 300 grams of mushrooms – I used the white button ones, but I guess you can use any non-poisonous fungi you prefer. Set aside.

By now your chicken should be slightly tenderer than it was before. Usually you need to salt those baes for a few hours, but this recipe takes long enough as it is, so that’s going to have to do.

Heat a large frypan on a medium to high heat, then chuck in 20 grams of butter, letting it melt and brown a little. Drop in a glug of olive oil then a good squeeze of minced garlic from a tube. Once that starts sizzling, lay the chicken in, being careful not to overcrowd the pan, and brown on both sides. Set aside in a bowl so you capture all that garlicky chicken juice.

Add more butter and oil to the same pan with the crusty chickeny bits before tossing in the whitest bits of leek, garlic and onion. The heat should be low to medium at this point.

Once the onion starts going translucent and soft, add one cup of brown rice, stirring slightly until it also goes translucent. I don’t know if this is important or not, but it was what the Arborio rice packet says to do when you make risotto with that stuff, so I assume it’s the same deal.

Add one cup of stock, stirring gently until all the liquid is absorbed.

Now add all the other leek choppings, along with another cup of stock.

Once that’s absorbed, chuck in those mushies and another three-quarters-of-a-cup of stock because that’s all I had left.

I’m not going to lie to you, I’d started drinking wine by this point and was watching TV, so I covered the pan and let it sit for a while – I can’t say how long because I honestly cannot remember.

Once the rice has soaked that up, add half a cup of cheap red winefrom the fridge. Chuck the lid back on and watch another 20 minutes or so of TV. After that point, the dish should look suspiciously like red wine vomit, bubbling away.

If your rice isn’t soft enough, add more wine to the mix, stir and let sit for another 10 minutes or so. It’s totally fine – brown rice needs its me time, and so do you, honey.

Once you’re happy with the squishiness of the rice, grab three cubes and a few crumbly dregs of goat’s cheese and stir into the mixture.

Slop the delicious goop into bowls and serve… yourself, after pouring another glass of wine.

If you want to completely recreate the recipe, I recommend enjoying this dish curled up under a blanket with a scented candle burning while watching The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina.