Spicy and Sweet Chicken and Couscous With Minty Cilantro Sauce

Here's another Rachael Ray recipe.  This one is from her Express Lane Meals cookbook.
additional instructions, photos, etc found here: http://www.food.com/recipe/spicy-and-sweet-chicken-and-couscous-pot-with-minty-cilantro-sau-481222

2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup mango chutney
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into large bite-sized pieces
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and sliced (I use two, one red and one green)
3 garlic cloves, minced (you could also take a shortcut and use the already minced garlic in a jar - 1 tsp equals one clove)
3 inches fresh ginger, peeled and grated (I used a few shakes of grated ginger)
zest and juice of one lemon
1 1/2 cups plain couscous


For the sauce; 
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I use Greek Yogurt)
10 fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup fresh cilantro 
3 scallions, trimmmed, coarsely chopped
juice of one lime

1. In small pot over med heat, combine 2 c of chicken stock and chutney, salt and pepper, bring to a bubble and keep simmering over low heat.

2. Heat a skillet (I used a wok) and add the olive oil.  Next add the spices and heat.  Chop up the chicken and add it to the pan, coating with the spice mixture.   Add the peppers and onions, season with salt and pepper and add the ginger

3. Create a well in the center of the pan.  Add the chutney mixture, couscous and lemon zest & juice.   You may need to spread everything in the pan to cover the couscous with the liquid. Once the couscous is cooked, remove from heat and cover to set.

4.  While the couscous is cooking, make the sauce.  (The cookbook and food.com both say to use a blender, but I used a wooden spoon and it worked fine. )  Mix the yogurt, greens and lime juice and stir.

5.  Serve with sauce drizzled over each serving

Chicken Korma II

Here's another Chicken Korma recipe that I made up as I went along.

1 pkg chicken
1 small tomato
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
1 can coconut milk
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 small container of plain yogurt (Stop and Shop's store brand Greek Yogurt worked well)
assorted spices (I used cinnamon, ground cloves, ground ginger, coriander, cayenne pepper, turmeric and cumin)

1. in a small sauce pan, simmer coconut milk and spices
2. In a skillet or wok, heat oil (i used coconut oil)
3. Chop onion and tomato and toss in wok with garlic
4. Chop chicken and add to skillet
5.  Heat Chicken thoroughly.
6.  Add almonds and coconut to skillet
7.  Add coconut milk mixture to chicken mixture
8.  Add yogurt to mixture.

No pictures on this post.  Mobile photos aren't syncing for some reason.  Also, I'm lazy.

Chicken Korma

Yesterday afternoon, a few of the girls from high school and I decided to get together and make a delicious curry for lunch.

 We used this recipe for Chicken Korma as a guide, and tweaked it as we went along.

We started by heating coconut milk in a saucepan with 3 cinnamon sticks, 3 pieces of Star Anise, a few shakes of Cardamom, and a few shakes of curry powder.  Really, you can use whatever spices you want.  Cayenne, Coriander, Turmeric, Cumin.... the possibilities are endless!  Also, most Korma recipes tell you to cook it in the oven, but we found that cooking it on the stove was easier.  After that mixture thoroughly heated, we added almonds and golden raisins.

While that was heating, we heated coconut oil and added cut up onions, peppers and eggplant.

 When it was heated, we put the veggies aside and cooked the in the pan.  When everything was heated, we mixed it all together.

Crock Pot Chicken Makhani (Indian Butter Chicken)

I love Indian food.  I order it a couple times a month, but for a long time was unable to replicate it at home.  I found several recipes that were plenty tasty, but just didn't taste like the Indian food that I was used to ordering.

Chicken Tikka Masala is one of my favorites.  Turns out, it's not an authentic Indan dish, but one that Curry Houses in the UK have made to replicate the Indian Butter Chicken that one might find in India.  (Pretty sure my college English professor would kill me for that sentence.  He always hated when we said things like "One might find".  He was vehemently against using the word "one" in such a context.  I'm getting off topic.

I've been blogging a lot about my crock pot and how I want to use it for more than just soups and stews.  I figured, why not look for an Indian recipe that I can make in the crock pot.  I found this one and made it today.

The recipe calls for cardamom pods.  I didn't want to go through the trouble of sewing cardamom pods together, so I googled to find out what the equivalent would be for ground cardamom (1 pod = 1/6 tsp ground cardamom)  That's much easier!

It also calls for tomato paste.  I used the one that has basil in it.  Yum!  For the yogurt, I used Greek Yogurt.  I actually prefer Icelandic yogurt, but I haven't been able to find an unflavored one.  There are plenty of brands of Greek Yogurt that make a plain version so I used that.

all the ingredients ready to go!

To juice the lemon, I used this handy gadget.  It makes squeezing and measuring much easier, and a lot less messy:

I wish blogger would let me rotate images.

After letting everything cook in the crock pot all day, I returned to this:

yum!

For side dishes, I made Roasted Asparagus, of course!  And I cooked up a box of Rice Pilaf with Lentils.  I added some cumin and cilantro (in a squeezable tube!)

I thought everything came out really well.  Here's a look at the finished, plated project.  (I'm really trying to work on my food photography skills):

a delicious and flavorful dinner!

Tomato Cucumber Salad

When I was in college, I used to watch Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals all the time.  I have a few of her cookbooks, and this Tomato Cucumber Salad is one of my favorite summer side dishes.  I know it's January, but it's my blog, and I'll post a summer recipe if I want to!  (also-- no one says that you can't have this all year round anyway!)  This one is from Rachael's Express Lane Meals book.

Ingredients:

1 Shallot, finely chopped
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 English cucumber, cut in half lengthwise, then thinly sliced into half moons
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbsp. white wine vinegar
3 tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper

1. In a shallow bowl, combine shallot, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper
2. In a steady stream, whisk in the olive oil
3. add the grape tomatoes.  Mash some of them with a fork so the juices become part of the dressing
4. add cucumbers and toss to combine

For a variation, you may want to try this Indian version.  I had lunch at an Indian buffet today, and one of the employees was sitting by the bar, making these fresh to order.

The tomatoes and cucumbers were cut into cubes.  He tossed them with cilantro, onion chutney, raita, tamarind sauce and mint chutney.  He topped the mixture with what looked like pieces of papadums, followed by more raita, and a swirl of tamarind sauce.  It was very refreshing, and a nice addition to my lunch.