Thai Green Curry Chicken

I love Thai food. I had two best friends when I was in elementary & primary school that were Thai. With that said, Asian food is one of the scariest things I can think of to try and attempt MYSELF in the kitchen.
But I wanted to try making green curry like I have had in Thai restaurants. It's delicious. Before going to the store, I did what I always do when getting ready to attempt a dish I'm not familiar with- google it. I looked at lots of recipes. But I secretly hoped that the jar of green curry paste at the store would have a recipe. Lots of brands these days have recipes utlizing their products printed on the product or at a website. This was just the case when I found Thai Kitchens green curry paste. There was an oh so simple recipe printed on the jar. Armed with the paste. fish sauce and a can of coconut milk, I headed home.
When I got home, I decided to check out the vendors website. Low and behold, there were lots more recipes there. I ended up doing a mix between the recipe on the curry paste jar and this one.
The final dish was amazing. I thought it tasted just perfect. Hubby didn't care for the jasmine rice it's served on- so next time I'll make some plain rice for him. I feel so much less threatened by Asian cuisine now!
I know I bought the curry paste. But do you know what all is in that stuff? Lots of things I have never seen at my local grocery store, that's for sure. (lemongrass, galangal, and certain chilis just to start) Plus- I wouldn't know how much of what to put in. The premade curry paste is such an easier alternative. Delicious too. :)
*note* The amount of fish sauce and curry paste you will need may vary depending on the brand you choose, as well as the potency desired. Start will a low amount- you can always add more.

Thai Green Curry Chicken serves 4
(adapted from Thai Kitchens)

1 14oz can coconut milk (I used lowfat)
1/3 c. chicken stock
1/4 c. julienned fresh basil leaves
2 tbl. fish sauce (Thai Kitchen brand)
1 tbl. green curry paste (Thai Kitchen brand)
2 tbl. brown sugar
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 large (or 2 small) carrots, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
1 medium onion, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 c. frozen or fresh peas (optional)
1-2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces.
Jasmine rice

Mix together the coconut milk, chicken stock, basil, fish sauce, curry paste and brown sugar in a large saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce down to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add in the chicken and all of the vegetables (whatever combination of veggies you prefer). Simmer the whole mixture over low/medium-low heat until the chicken is cooked through and the carrots are tender. About 10-15 minutes.
Serve over rice. Enjoy!

I have linked up this tasty recipe at:

• Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
• Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
• Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
• Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
• Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
• Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
• Strut Your Stuff at Somewhat Simple
• It's Party Time Thursday at Ponytails & Fish Scales
• Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
• I'm Lovin It at Tidy Mom
• Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home

Chicken Won tons

I am a fan of oriental cuisine- but a little intimidated when it comes to making it. I have looked and looked at recipes of won tons for one that looked easy for me to make.
I once made a sweet and sour sauce that was just horrible. I couldn't eat it, it was so gross. Not sure what went wrong. Anyway.
I do like cooking with won ton wrappers. They are just so fun for some reason. Like little pieces of flexible pasta, just waiting to be molded and flavored and baked, fried or steamed!
I found a recipe that looked easy enough (not sure where because I copied down a list of ingredients and kind of made it up from there). The important thing for me in this venture was working with ingredients I have on hand AND am comfortable cooking with, i.e. I know the flavors and what jives and what doesn't jive. Make sense? Hope so.
These won tons were reaaallllyyy good. Hubby and I ate All. Of. Them. THe carrots brought out a sweetness that I enjoyed- but you can add in some finely chopped celery (about 1/4 c) and tone it down a bit. I also think it can be improved upon by eating them with a sauce. I'm not ready to try making sweet and sour yet- and was too lazy to go buy a premade sauce. Sweet and sour is my favorite, but I think hoisin would also be lovely with these.
The ingredients I am using can be switched out to your liking. Since the chicken is precooked- I recommend tasting the filling before forming the won tons to make sure its something you like.

Chicken Wontons (makes 40-ish)

1 chicken breast, cooked and chopped into tiny pieces
1/3 c. shredded carrot (I used one small/med carrot)
1/4 c. finely chopped celery (optional)
1/4 c. finely chopped onion
4 tsp. soy sauce
4 tsp. sherry
1 tsp. lemon or lime juice
1 tsp. ground ginger
40 won ton wrappers (or 10 spring roll wrappers, quartered)
non stick spray
water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non stick spray.
Mix together the chicken, carrot, celery, onion, soy, sherry, lemon juice and ginger. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.
Place a teaspoon on the center of each wrapper and lightly dampen the edges of two adjoining sides. Bring the other two sides up and seal- forming a little triangle. You can pull the two opposite points together and have something like a tortellini, or just leave as is.
Place won tons on cookie sheet, and spray them with cooking spray. This enables them to get nice and crispy in the oven.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until wrappers begin crisping up.


I have linked up over at:

• Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
• Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
• Made By You Monday at Skip to my Lou
• Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
• Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
• Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
• Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
• Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
• Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
• Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
• Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace

Chicken Marsala

Over the weekend I decided to make Chicken Marsala. I've had it before, but have never tried making it. Hubby was all for it, so I began looking at different recipes from the internet, my cookbooks, and even the Marsala bottle. The main ingredients for all were Marsala, chicken broth and chicken that is dredged in flour. Most also had sliced mushrooms. Yum. With so little ingredients, the recipe could be wonderful or a total flop.
Well, I am very happy to say that the recipe I put together was wonderful! The chicken was super tasty and sweet! We ate ours over pasta because that lovely sauce cannot be put to waste. Very good.
This dish is definitely best the first day. Right after it's made, it's wonderful. The next day it's good- but not as good unfortunately.

Chicken Marsala serves 4
recipe by Stacia

2 chicken breasts, halved lengthwise
salt & pepper
1/4 c. flour for dredging
olive oil
8 oz mushrooms, sliced (whatever kind you like- I used button mushrooms)
2 tbl. unsalted butter
1 c. low sodium chicken broth
1 c. sweet Marsala

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and then dredge in the flour. Let them sit while a skillet with enough olive oil to coat the bottom warms up over medium heat.
Cook the chicken, a couple pieces at a time as to not crowd the pan and lower the heat dramatically. This should take about 3-5 minutes per side depending on how thick the pieces are and how hot your burner gets. Go ahread and check the thickest part of each when you think it's done- I almost ALWAYS do that.
Once the chicken is done cooking, add the butter and mushrooms to the pan and lower the heat a little. Cook the mushrooms down until they begin to soften up. If you lose moisture in the pan to cook the mushrooms, add a little of the broth instead of adding more butter or oil.
At this point, I sprinkled a couple tablespoons of the leftover flour over my mushrooms as to thicken up the sauce more in the end, but that is completely optional. If you do add some flour, stir it around to make sure it doesn't just clump to a few mushrooms.
Add the Marsala and the broth, keeping the heat on medium low. Stir everything around and make sure to get all of the good browned bits on the bottom from the chicken.
All that's left is to cook down the broth and mushrooms for a couple minutes, then add the chicken back in while the sauce finishes up. Cook until the sauce reduces by about half and thickens up a little. Enjoy!


I have linked this recipe up at:

• Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple
• Just Something I Whipped Up hosted this week at DillyDally and Flitter
• Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
• Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
• Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
• Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
• Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
• Tuesdays Tastes at Crazy Daisy
• Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
• Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
• It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
• I'm Lovin It at Tidy Mom
• Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

Crock Pot Chicken Mole

Mole is really good stuff. My mom and I used to like getting it at a local Mexican restaurant near our house until they closed up shop.

Fast forward several years without mole. I have seen recipes for it in books, chefs make it on Food Network, but never got around to making it myself because the ingredient list looked daunting. Not to mention spicy.

My momma would be proud!

Now to the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks we recieved as wedding presents. Two of them have recipes for slow cooker mole. The thing is, the recipes couldn't be more different. One has dried chiles, and the other just spices. One chicken and the other turkey.

I decided to make the recipe without the dried chiles. I didn't want to spend the extra money on them, and the store didn't have the kind I needed anyways. Only one problem, the recipe called for a couple of turkey breasts. I guess it isn't really a problem since I don't have any problem with changing out ingredients for recipes on the first shot. I had 6 more chicken thighs that I didn't use after making the Chicken Tagine.

The spices look like a lot. Believe me, they look like a lot. I measured them all out in the measuring spoon I used to measure the almonds (you'll see) and it seems like a lot. Especially the chili powder. But it really isn't. The cinnamon and cumin balance out the chili powder really nicely. I wouldn't even say that the dish was "spicy". Although next time I would really like to try it with the dried chiles!

Chicken Mole

adapted from Williams-Sonoma

6 chicken thighs, bone-in/skinless

1/4 c. flour for dredging

olive oil

2 small/medium) yellow onions, chopped

1/2 c. slivered almonds (these are different from plain old almonds, they have been blanched)

1 tbl. chili powder (trust me on this one!)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes, drained (I like the low sodium kind)

1 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate (I had semi-sweet bakers chocolate and it worked just fine! You could also sub chocolate chips, I'm sure)

1 tsp. dried oregano

salt and pepper

1 14oz can chicken broth (again, I prefer the low sodium kind)

Cooked rice (optional)

First things first, I like to dredge the chicken in flour and brown it on both sides before adding it to the slow cooker. It's completely optional, but I would like to think it brings another depth of flavor and texture to the party. So, if you want, dredge the chicken in flour and then brown both sides in a skillet over medium/med-high heat and then stick them in the crock pot.

Now, onto making the oh-so-tasty sauce. In a frying pan or saucepan, or whatever you want, put about 3 tbl of olive oil and heat it up over med-high heat. Once the oil has warmed up, add the onion and the almonds. Stir it around and saute until the almonds have browned. Don't let it sit there untouched or the almonds will burn quickly! This step adds a nice toasty-ness to the almonds!

Once the almonds have browned and the onion started to turn translucent, add in your chili powder, cinnamon and cumin. Stir it around until it's nice and fragrant. Now add your diced tomatoes, chocolate, oregano, some salt & pepper and about half of the chicken broth. Stir everything around until the chocolate has melted completely.

In a food processor or blender add your mixture (a little bit at a time, as the mixture is very hot and we don't want to redecorate the walls!) and blend until it's all nice and smooth. This is the part that I really enjoyed having an immersion blender for. It's a beautiful thing, really. Once everything is blended and back in the pan, stir in the rest of the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Stir it all around and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Remember, the sauce won't thicken up much in the slow cooker since the lid is on and no steam can escape.

Add the oh-so-tasty sauce to the slow cooker and move the chicken around a bit so that every bit of it is covered. Cover the slow cooker and turn it on low. This will take about 2 hours to cook. (Maybe longer if you didn't brown your chicken?)

Take the chicken out after the 2 hours and shred it all up. Stir it back into the sauce and serve over cooked rice.

Note: This recipe makes a bunch of mole. It can feed 4, with leftovers. What to do with those leftovers? Roll up some mole in flour tortillas and cover with monterey jack cheese and bake in the oven until the cheese has melted and everything has heated through. (375 degrees for 20 min or 350 for about 30)


I liked up this tasty dish at:

• Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
• Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
• It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales 
• Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum
• I'm Lovin It Fridays at TidyMom
• Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
• Friday Food at momtrends
• Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello
• Easy Recipe Saturday at Woman Who Do It All
• Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen

Chicken Tagine

Let me start this off by saying how much I enjoy Williams-Sonoma cookbooks. After receiving my first at my bridal shower, I put some on my wedding registry and we received most of them! Awesome!
Also, how awesome are slow cookers? I mean really. Put all the ingredients inside, turn on, and dinner is ready later. It's wonderful.
I made this Chicken Tagine for my parents once when they came over soon after the wedding. Hubby found it to be a bit too lemon-y, so I cut back a little this time and I think it was better.
With a few more tweaks, like the addition of onion and bell pepper because I had them in the fridge and NEEDED to use them soon, the recipe came out great.
I served the whole thing with homemade pita bread (will be my next post), roasted red bell pepper hummus (didn't come out right, unfortunately) and some couscous. Yummy!

Chicken Tagine
(recipe adapted from Williams-Sonoma Slow Cooker)

1/4 c. flour
salt & pepper
6-8 chicken thighs, bone in & skin removed (the original recipe has the skins on, but they end up all soggy after slow cooking for a couple hours)
olive oil
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 can chicken broth (I prefer low sodium)
1/2 c. chopped parsley (optional, but it brings nice color to the party)
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
2 14oz cans of diced tomatoes, drained
1 onion, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced (mine were about 3/8 inch wide pieces)
1 lemon, cut into 8ths
1 15oz can garbanzo beans, drained
cooked couscous (optional)
pita bread (optional)

First step is to sprinkle the chicken thighs with salt and pepper, then dredge them in the flour. By doing the salt and pepper first, it ensures even coverage. This recipe makes a lot of sauce, so you can keep it at 6 thighs, or go all the way up to 8.
Heat up a skillet over medium/medium-high with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Brown both sides of the thighs, going a few at a time so the pan doesn't get crowded. We just want some nice color, not to cook them all the way through. Once they are browned, place them in the slow cooker.
Now we make the sauce. Add the rest of the flour you used to dredge (might need to add a little more if you are cooking more thighs) to the warm skillet along with the cumin and cayenne. Stir it around until the flour and spices are fragrant and absorbed into the remaining oil. Add the can of chicken broth to the skillet and bring to a boil. Make sure to stir it around to get up all of those tasty browned bits left in the pan!
Add the broth mixture to the slow cooker along with the parsley, garlic, tomatoes, onion and bell pepper. Swish it all around a bit to get it in between those thighs.
Tuck a few pieces of lemon around in the slow cooker between thighs. If you have a really juicy lemon, add less. If you like the nice tang than citrus brings, add more. I had juicy lemons and added 3 pieces.
Cook on high heat for 1 1/2 hours (or low for 4). Stir in the garbanzos and cook for an additional hour.
Serve over a bed of couscous(top photo). Or, you can take the chicken out, shred it up and mix it with some of those tomatoes and garbanzos and some couscous and stuff it in a pita. talk about TASTY! (photo in middle of page)


This delicious dish is linked up at:

• Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
• I'm Lovin It at Tidy Mom
• Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum 
• Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello
• Putluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
• Sunday Showcase at Under The Table and Dreaming