Chicken with Coconut Curry

This dish turned out to be a very simple one-pot dinner that required very little effort on our part.  The hardest part was peeling and chopping two carrots and cleaning and chopping some mushrooms.  Once that was done, we were pretty much on mix-and-cook mode.

Veggies prepped, we heated a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, browned four chicken thighs for about 6 minutes each side and poured off some of the oil (you can use a baster to just suck it out if you have a high-temperature baster, or you can just tip the pan over a jar, catching most of the oil - we didn't even remove the chicken!).  We added the veggies directly in with the chicken, tossed briefly then added a can of light coconut milk, a cup of chicken stock, two crushed cloves of garlic and two tablespoons of red curry paste.

I like the flavor of curry but didn't want this dish to be overpowering.  You could add more curry paste if that's to your family's liking.  We also tossed in a couple of stalks of chopped celery, but you could add water chestnuts or another veggies (chopped bell pepper or onion, for instance) depending on what you have on hand.

Once the liquids came to a boil, I turned the heat down to a simmer and let it cook about 25 minutes, until the chicken was tender and cooked through.



We served ours with a prepared mix of wild and brown rice (Uncle Ben's microwave mixes are really handy on a weeknight;although I find them to be a little too salty for everyday use, they are convenient).

This dish was everything you want in a homemade weeknight dinner.  Minimal prep, not too much time at the stove, and it cooks just long enough to set the table, wash up and oversee a few worksheets of fractions and spelling words.

Based on this first foray into homemade curry, I think we'll be coming back down this path!

Chicken with Coconut Curry
4 chicken thighs
1 (14 oz) can of light coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
two large carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
8-10 mushrooms, cleaned and quartered (stems can be removed or left on)
2 stalks celery, optional, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 TB (or more to taste) red curry paste
Cooked rice or noodles, for serving.

Brown the thighs in 2 TB hot oil about 4-6 minutes each side.  Add chopped vegetables and garlic, toss for about 1 minute, until garlic is fragrant.  Add broth and coconut milk (shake the can well before opening).  Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer the chicken for about 25 minutes.

Serve over rice or noodles.

Falafel Chicken

Today was an uninspiring kind of day.  Rainy and busy, I pulled out of the office parking lot late, two kids at home and a pitifully empty refrigerator.  So I did what any normal person does when faced with a dinner emergency.  I called one of my sisters.

"What's for dinner?"

"Your house or mine?" (we live several states apart)

"Mine.  There's nothing in the pantry, and I've got about 20 minutes to shop, go!"
She thought for a moment then spoke these magical words: "Falafel Chicken!"

I took a few mental notes, dashed between the drizzles to pick up milk, chicken thighs and falafel mix and headed home.

My son tossed together some butternut squash chunks (worth buying pre-chunked!) while my daughter measured out and mixed up tabouleh salad.

I dipped the chicken thighs in egg, turned them over in the falafel mix and put them in a non-stick pan with some hot olive oil.  About 5 or 6 minutes per side and they were done.

The chicken stayed very moist but the crust was flavorful and crunchy.  We had a little cranberry sauce on the side and it provided a nice tart, bright note to the dinner.

Falafel chicken is something I never would have thought of, but it just skyrocketed to the top of my easy-weeknight-dinner list!  Thanks Krissy!

Now if only we were close enough to share the dishes....

Chorizo Chicken

I'm always looking for ways to boost the flavor of dishes without making them completely unhealthful.  Chorizo is like bacon, one of those amazing flavors that just doesn't fit our diet in large portions.  I tried a recipe from A Platter of Figs (an amazing cookbook if you haven' seen it yet) and it used a small quantity of chorizo to flavor a fish soup.  It's a great recipe, and it provided the inspiration for this chicken dish.

We find chorizo here in the grocery store, in rather large quantities.  Luckily, it lends itself to freezing so it's easy to keep some in the freezer, just like bacon.

By using a little bit for flavoring, the spicyness becomes a plesant part of the dish.  You could start out with half the amount, if you've got kids who don't like spicy food, but this is a pretty mild dish, even with the full amount.

Saute one chorizo sausage (skin removed) in a large non-stick frying pan.

Drain the extra fat, add one diced onion and several chopped cloves of garlic.  When the onions are beginning to soften, about 6 minutes, nestle 6 boneless chicken thighs (or other chicken cut) into the chorizo/onion mix.  Cook for about 4 minutes, then turn and cook 4 minutes more. 

Add 1-1.5 cups chicken broth (enough to nearly cover the thighs) and cover the pan.  Let the thighs cook about 6 minutes more, until the chicken is cooked through.  Add a very small pasta (such as pastina) to the pan and cook until al dente.  Serve with a hearty whole grain bread and a fresh salad or other vegetable dish.

The leftovers were even better the next day.

The kids enjoyed chopping, measuring and....eating!