Burmese Chicken Curry

Today I thought I’d share one of my favorite recipes.  I got this recipe from a lady I used to work for who has turned into a good friend.  She wasn’t sure where exactly she got it from – but it was well loved in her kitchen as well.   When I started on my real food journey, and especially when I started reading Eat Fat Lose Fat , I was excited because I already had a well-loved recipe that I could eat!  To top it off, it’s very versatile – I never make it the same way twice!

BURMESE CHICKEN CURRY

2-3 lbs chicken, cubed

1 large onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

¼ C vegetable coconut oil

2T soy sauce

2t chili powder (sometimes I just use a few red pepper flakes to spice things up)

1t turmeric

2t coriander

1t ginger

½ t cardamom

1 can coconut milk

hot pepper, to taste

Sauté chicken in coconut oil.  Add onion and garlic when chicken is just about cooked through.  Add spices and coconut milk to the chicken when the onions are soft.  Cover and simmer for 40 minutes. {I don’t think it needs a full 40 minutes!}

this is before the coconut milk & spices

Now, here is the great thing about this recipe: you can replace all or part of the chicken with vegetables!  I usually cook about one pound of chicken up and then add in veggies to make a full pot.  I use all kinds of vegetables in this.  My favorites are eggplant, carrots, celery, green beans, and kale.  Not necessarily all in one dish.  I use either fresh, frozen or even leftover from another night (sometimes all in one pot!).  It’s very versatile.  I just put the veggies in according to cooking time.  Most of the vegetables I put in just before I add the spices.   When I do kale, I put it in about 10 minutes before it’s done simmering.   The recipe I have also says to try garbanzo beans.  I haven’t yet, but I bet using beans in place of chicken along with veggies would make a very yummy meatless meal!

Enjoy! And please leave a comment if you have some other veggies you like to add (or think would be good to try)!

This post linked to:

Tuesday Twister

Pennywise Thursday

Menu Plan ~ Nov 28

Now that we are moved, I feel like I can truly plan our meals again.  All the dishes are unpacked.  Although the food is disorganized, it’s all out of bags and boxes.

With Thanksgiving last week, we have a bit of leftovers to use.  Not a lot, as I purposely didn’t make a lot and shared what was leftover.  I have some turkey bone broth to make today from the carcass and a couple meals worth of turkey meat.  Everything else is just a few bites of stuff, good for sending in my hubby’s lunch (or giving to Bug for snack). 

The new job doesn’t let me get home until 5:00 or so every night.  If I have errands to run, it is even later!  I’m going to try to use my crockpot as much as possible, so that I don’t have to spend as much time in the evening working on dinner.  I have enough other things to do! Time to start delegating the meals to my handy slow-cooker!

Sunday:  Frozen Pizza and salad

Monday: Crockpot Turkey Tortilla Soup topped with tortilla chips, avocado, cheese and sour cream

Tuesday: Spaghetti and salad

Wednesday: Creamy Turkey With Artichokes

Thursday: Leftovers or YOYO (You’re on your own!)

Friday: Italian Roast Beef (in Crockpot), Brussels sprouts, and rolls

Linked to: OrgJunkie's Menu Plan Monday

Kvass Giveaway @ Food Renegade!

Food Renegade is holding a giveaway (ends tonight!) for a free 6-pack of Zukay Kvass drinks.

If you’ve never had Kvass, it’s a super healthy fermented drink usually made from beets.  Zukay offers Beet, Beet Ginger, Carrot Ginger and Veggie Medley Kvass flavors.   I really want to try the Carrot Ginger!

You can enter the give away by going to visit Food Renegade. 

But if you win, you have to share with me!

Win a Bottle of Fermented Cod Liver Oil!!

Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship is talking about fermented cod liver oil!  Yes, that's right, the smelly, nasty stuff that is incredibly good for you!


If you've been thinking about FCLO, but were afraid to take the plunge, well now is your chance.  Katie is having a Giveaway for twenty bottles of the stuff from Green Pastures Products - in the flavor of your choice!  Did you know they have such flavors as orange, cinnamon and mint?  Might make it a little easier to go down!

Head on over to Kitchen Stewardship and sign up to win.

Then don't for get to take your cod liver oil!

Giveaway @ Keeper of the Home

I didn't do a menu plan this week.  Bad me! But it's one of those weeks. 

I popped over to tell you about a giveaway going on over at Keeper of the Home! Stephanie has got three copies of Herbal Nurturing: A Family Healing & Learning Guide written by Michele from Frugal Granola. 

I'm excited by this e-book.  We have a tendency not to use anything for help in healing because we don't want to use 'medicine'.  I would love to dive into the natural options that I can feel good about giving to my family.

Keeper of the Home has been sharing a lot of home remedies this month, and this is giving me just a taste.  I did not realize all the natural remedies out there just for dealing with colds and the flu!  When If we get sick this winter, I now know we won't just suffer thorough!

So head on over to Keeper of the Home and leave a comment to win this wonderful new e-book!

Weekly Menu Plan: Oct 10

Back for another week of menus.  I'm a little behind in the posting of this (try 3 days behind!), but I did make the menu on Monday, so that is a plus!

Last weeks big hit was Friday night's Skillet Chicken in Thyme & Red Wine Sauce.  WOW.  Rave reviews from all mouths, even Bug's.  The Dal didn't go over so well, but I will try another recipe another time.

I'm trying to eat as many fresh vegetables from the Farmers Market as I can right now.  I know that the luxury of having fresh food like this will soon be coming to an end as winter approaches.  It's a very sad thought of having to eat either frozen veggies or veggies from far away lands.  I have a feeling we'll be eating a lot of squash! :D

SUNDAY

Take N Bake Pizza

(We were watching football and I couldn't be bothered with coming up with something to eat!)

MONDAY

Grilled Chicken

Baked Squash

TUESDAY

Stir-Fried Veggie Rice

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast Burritos

Fruit

THURSDAY

Burmese Curry Chicken and Veggies

Brown Rice

FRIDAY

Italian Roast Beef

Red Potatoes

Sauteed Kale

Baked Apple Crisp

SATURDAY

Leftovers

This post linked to Menu Plan Monday @ OrgJunkie.com

Concord Grape Jam

On Wednesday, Bug and I participated in our first harvest with Portland Fruit Tree Project.  It was fun.  Our small group (8 or 9 of us all together) picked 92 lbs worth of green concord grapes.  This was quite the interesting task because the grape vines were growing on an arbor roof over a restaurant's outdoor dining area (there were no diners at the time).

The way PFTP works, is people volunteer to harvest from trees (or in this case vines) and half of what is harvested goes to the local food bank, and half gets split up between the harvesters.  It's a great project.  The trees belong to people who can't / don't want to harvest themselves.

So I got to bring home 7 lbs of green concord grapes.  But then I had to figure out what to do with the grapes.  We don't eat a lot of grapes here. 

Bug wanted to make them into raisins.  But they had seeds, so that wasn't going to work. (I am drying a few small ones that don't have seeds just for him though.)

So the next logical thing was jelly.  But I didn't have my steam juicer out of storage to make some nice pretty grape juice without all the work.

I then decided on jam.  I pulled the grapes off the stems and washed them.  Then I threw them into a pot and cooked them for about 10 minutes, giving them a smash with a potato masher a few times a lot, smashing grapes is fun!

After they had cooked and released all their juices, I pushed them through a sieve. I ended up with a disgusting looking puke-green juice with quite a bit of pulp.

At this point, I followed the directions on my packet of Pomona's Pectin.  I used 4 C of grape juice (with pulp) and 1 C of sugar.

It turned out much better than store-bought grape jelly.  Doesn't it always though?

my disgusting puke-green beautiful concord grape jam

This post linked at Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday.