Chicken Shrimp Coconut Curry

Sometimes you have a bunch of ingredients laying around, and have no idea what you can make with them. I had some potatoes, carrots and onions laying around that needed to be used up quickly. (I didn't feel like making gnocchi again!) I found a can of coconut milk in my pantry and the idea of curry started forming.

Ingredients

• 1, 13.5 oz can coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• 1 chicken bullion cube
• some chopped baby carrots, chopped
  
• 2 russet potatoes (pealed and chopped)
• 1/3 sweet onion, diced
• 1 chicken breaste, cubed
• 8 shrimp
• +3 Tblsp brown sugar
• 20oz can of pineapple (drained)
• 8 tsp curry powder.
  

Instructions

• Combine milk, water and spices with potatos, carrots and bring to a summer. Cook for 5-10 minutes until the veggies soften. (covered)
  
  
  
• Add onions, chicken, shrimp and pineapple chunks and simmer covered, stirring occasionally until the meats are cooked
  
  
• remove from heat, serve over rice.
  
  
  
  

Initially when I tasted the curry, I felt there was something missing. There was something different from what I've had in similar curries at restaurants . I finally realized... SUGAR! The little bit of brown sugar listed in the ingredients brought this curry from ordinary to extraordinary!

Matzah ball soup

I have a huge backlog of pictures and recipes that I need to write up and post. For now, I thought I would share a delicious picture of some matzah ball soup.

I made the chicken soup from scratch. I don't know what normally possesses me to make two chicken soups, but I like to have a lot to put in the freezer. I added some rosemary and thyme to the soup base and it gave a nice fragrant twist.

Hopefully I will be able to be back with regular ChemEats posts in the near future.

Chicken Parmesan

I am thrilled to finally own a meat tenderizer! I'm ready to pound some chicken for the first time to make Chicken Parmesan.

I pounded the chicken breasts inside ziplock bags (where they had defrosted). The breast on the left has been pounded about 1/4 inch thin, the breast on the right is unaltered.

I pan fried the chicken breasts for ~5 minutes on each side.

Our pans are VERY non-stick, so we only needed the tiniest amount of oil.

Our griddle pan hadn't arrived in the mail yet, so I had to use two different pans to cook dinner. Thank goodness these pans are dishwasher safe!

What Italian meal would be complete without garlic bread? I had this in the oven to crisp as the chicken was cooking on the stovetop.

After I put the mozarella cheese on top, I stuck the pans directly in the oven at 300 degrees for a min so the cheese would melt.

This meal was so fast and easy to prepare. I cannot see myself ever using pre-breaded chicken again!

Tempura Chicken

Another Trader Joe's masterpiece. The tempura chicken kit is $4-6 (I cannot remember at the moment) and is so delicious and fast to prepare.

The sauce is good (amazing actually), but there's not enough to cover a lot of rice with. Therefore I've started supplementing the mix with a sauce made out of pineapple, green pepper and onion. It's simple, but yummy and adds some veggies to the meal.

The ingredients for my supplemental sauce.

This time I only had a small onion, so I added half a shallot to the mix. I'm not sure the shallot added anything to the sauce, but it certainly didn't hurt anything! I don't always use crushed pineapple, when I use chunk I usually cut each of the pieces in half to make them into smaller bites. The extra juice helps make the sauce go farther.

I add a dash of low sodium soy sauce to finish off the sauce.

The sauce simmers while the chicken is in the oven.

If the sauce is too thin when we're ready to eat, I add a little corn starch to thicken it.

The frozen chicken

I layer the pepper/onion/pineapple sauce on top of rice, followed by the baked chicken and then topped with the (DELICIOUS) sweet and sour sauce that comes in the kit. There is definitely enough food for 3-4 meals.

Yum! Better than delivery, and much cheaper, too!

Chicken Dinner

I love the Culinary Circle brand of sauces. Each of them has a lot of depth of flavor, and they are very affordable. They can all work in many different situations, but each of the sauces I've functions as a fantastic chicken marinade.

Chicken breasts marinated in Roasted Garlic Peppercorn sauce.

This was such a simple dinner to create. I am getting more and more comfortable using the oven to prepare meat courses rather than doing everything on the stovetop. I will roast a whole bird (chicken or turkey) before the end of this year!

Yes, I decided to bake my (unbraided) challah at the same time as the chicken.

I am a bigger fan of couscous than Keith, but I think it makes a nice side to backed chicken. I cook it with some chicken broth to help give it a little more flavor.

Besides the flavor, I love how fast couscous cooks up!

I am very pleased when I am able to put together a whole dinner with all of the appropriate food groups. It can be exhausting to be the primary one in charge of our meals, but I would not have it any other way. (Keith is a great cook, he just has a lot less time than I do!)

Chicken Soup with Collard Greens

Homemade chicken soup is one of my favorite things to cook. I love to make a really dense broth, full of veggies and extra chicken. I will make a two chicken soup, which helps there still be some broth, and then I use the second chicken to make chicken salad.

Last November, I had some collard greens from my Boston Organics food delivery, and I thought it would be fun to incorporate some greenery into my chicken soup (which normally just has carrots, onions, celery, parsnip and sometimes mushrooms).

Collard greens chopped into ~1 inch pieces

The reason why I love cooking chicken soup so much is that it freezes very well, and enables me to have homemade soup when I'm sick without having to do the work (or spend the money.) I had enough last to Passover that I was able to avoid making a big soup this year. (Keith and I were trying to use up our freezer and pantry since we would be moving in a few months.)

I added the collard greens in right at the very end, just before I took the chickens out.

I am about to eat the last bowl of this soup as I'm writing this post (April 25, 2011.) I'll let you in on a little secret, I schedule my posts to be published in advance. This way, I give you something new to read regularly even when real life becomes crazy. Plus, this post is going to be a reminder for me to make a big chicken soup to stock up my new freezer!

Why am I so bad at baking meat?

Every time I have to look it up to do.

Remember, Rebecca: Cook chicken at 350 degrees for 40 minutes!

I have yet to serve undercooked chicken, but I always expect it to take less time than it actually does!

Chicken baking with a Old Bay Spice rub

Fried Onion Baked Chicken

I'm not great at baking meats, but it is something that I want to put more effort into. I'm just not good at planning out the timing of it all.

I wrapped two sweet potatoes in foil and stuck them in the oven, too. I figured it was worth a shot to see if the timing works out well. I'll cut to the end and say that the timing did not work well, and that we ate the potato the next day.

Ingredients

• half container of onion pieces
• 1 egg
• 2 chicken breasts

Recipe

• Beat the egg (one medium sized egg)
  
• Don't bother crushing onions
• dip chicken breast into eggs then roll in onion pieces (put remaining on in baking pan.) place ocvered breasts on pre-sprayed pan
• preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• start timer at 30 min!!! 30-45 min (or until cooked)

The onion pieces didn't stick to the chicken super well, so I sprinkled some on top before I placed the chicken in the oven.

This chicken was so moist and had a nice crunchy crust. Too bad the fried onion pieces aren't very healthy, otherwise I'd start making this all the time! I hope you enjoy the French Onion Baked Chicken as much as Keith and I did.

Yum!

I served the chicken with some salad dressed with sugar free Balsamic dressing. It's a bit sweet for my taste, but I love the fact that it is low calorie!

Chicken and Apple Curry

Since I had dozens of apples, I wanted to find a main course that could use a significant portion of apples. I then discovered this chicken and apple curry recipe.

I made a few substitutions in the recipe and scaled it down to be suitable for 2 people. I doubled the curry powder (relative to the scaled ingredients) and used red onions that I had leftover from my organic vegetables delivery. Next time I make this curry, I would add more veggies (carrots and maybe pea pods) and use coconut milk or milk with higher fat content to make the sauce richer.

Over all, I consider this a win for my first attempt at a curry!