Coconut Curry Chicken

So I repinned a recipe from my sister, on Pinterest, and I made it Monday night. It was amazing! I will totally make it again and I highly recommend it. The best part is its healthy and so easy to make. The only thing I didn't add from the list of ingredients is corn starch, but I did add two things they didn't have listed: bamboo shoots and green beans. The bamboo shoots were from a can and I just drained the water and put them in the last hour of cooking. Then I added the green beans about 45 minutes before it was finished. What I liked abut the recipe is you purée over half the ingredients and it makes a delicious sauce, then you throw everything in the crockpot and let it cook for 6 hours.

I forgot to take a picture of ours but we even had leftovers tonight and it seemed to taste even better!
http://www.sweettreatsmore.com/2012/10/slow-cooker-coconut-curry-chicken/

And here is the recipe from the website:

Slow Cooker Coconut Curry Chicken

Ingredients

2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts or chicken thighs, cut into cubes

5 large carrots, peeled and diced

1 medium onion, peeled and quartered

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 large bell pepper, seeded and chopped (I used a green pepper)

1 (5 oz ) can tomato paste

1 (14 oz) can coconut milk

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp garam masala

1 jalapeno, seeded and halved OR 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

2 tbsp water

1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch

Instructions

Grease your slow cooker with Pam. Place the chicken and carrots on the bottom of slow cooker.

Place the rest of the ingredients (except water and corn starch) in a food processor and process together until mixture is mostly smooth. ***If your food processor is too small to hold everything, process everything but the coconut milk. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl then mix in the coconut milk.

Pour the sauce over the chicken and carrots, mix well, then cover and cook on low for about 6 hours.

An hour or so before serving, mix cornstarch and water together in a small bowl until cornstarch is dissolved. Pour mixture into the slow cooker, stir to combine, and continue cooking for another hour. **This will thicken up the sauce. When the sauce is to your desired thickness, turn slow cooker to warm setting until ready to serve.

Serve over rice, with Naan, and garnish with cilantro.

Zucchini Lasagna

Last night I made zucchini lasagna and it was so good! We had leftovers tonight and I totally recommend it. The great part is there's no noodles so you save a lot of calories by replacing it with zucchini.
Here is the link to the website: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/02/zucchini-lasagna.html

And here is the recipe straight from the website:
Zucchini Lasagna
Skinnytaste.com 
Servings: 8 • Serving Size: 1/8 • Old Points: 8 pts • Points+: 9 pts
Calories: 345 • Fat: 17 g • Carbs: 16 g • Fiber: 2 g • Protein: 36 g • Sugar: 8 g
Sodium: 801 (without salt) 

Ingredients:  

• 1 lb 93% lean beef
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 onion
• 1 tsp olive oil
• salt and pepper - I used garlic salt
• 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
• 3 medium zucchini, sliced 1/8" thick
• 15 oz part-skim ricotta
• 16 oz part-skin mozzarella cheese, shredded (Sargento)
• 1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano
• 1 large egg

Directions:

In a medium sauce pan, brown meat and season with salt. When cooked drain in colander to remove any fat. Add olive oil to the pan and saute garlic and onions about 2 minutes. Return the meat to the pan, add tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper. Simmeron low for at least 30-40minutes, covered. Do not add extra water, the sauce should be thick.

Meanwhile, slice zucchini into 1/8" thick slices, add lightly salt and set aside or 10 minutes. Zucchini has a lot of water when cooked, salting it takes out a lot of moisture. After 10 minutes, blot excess moisture with a paper towel.

On a gas grill or grill pan, grill zucchini on each side, until cooked, about 1-2 minutes per side. Place on paper towels to soak any excess moisture.

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a medium bowl mix ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and egg. Stir well. 


In a 9x12 casserole spread some sauce on the bottom and layer the zucchini to cover. Then place some of the ricotta cheese mixture, then top with the mozzarella cheese and repeat the process until all your ingredients are used up. Top with sauce and mozzarella and cover with foil.

Bake 45 minutes covered at 375°, then uncovered 15 minutes. Let stand about 5 - 10 minutes before serving.

Glorious Summer Fruit {and the things you can do with it}

I don't know about you, but I love fruit and especially during the summer time when the farmers markets are going on, fruit costs less and you can pick your own berries!

Nick and I went to the Owasso Christmas Tree and Berry Farm two weekends ago to pick scrumptious blueberries and blackberries. Berry picking is a bit dangerous because you just keep picking and picking and picking, then you have to go pay for it and before you know it you are spending $40 on berries (maybe we did that?!?!). They might still have some berries if you head out this weekend, but I would call ahead to be sure. Here is their website : http://www.owassotreefarm.com/blackberry.html

Here is what we ended up with. A lot, I know. But we have put it all to good use and none of the berries went bad. Woo hoo!

Here is a list of what I have done with the berries:
- Froze 2 small bags of blackberries
- Made 5 jars of blackberry jam
- Several fruit and yogurt parfaits
- Banana blueberry pancakes
- Banana blueberry bread
- Blackberries on top of ice cream
- Blueberry dumplings (this is a Paula Dean dessert and absolutely amazing, Recipe Here)

If you are interested in canning and want to try making your own jam, just go for it!! I was very intimated and not quite sure if it would work, but it turned out great. We will have blackberry jam all year, unless we decide to share some.

Here is the recipe I used to make the jam - Blackberry Jam The only change I would make is less sugar because our blackberries were ripe and super sweet. If you use frozen berries, you might want all the sugar. Next time I will reduce by about 1 to 1.5 cups.

If you have never canned before, I found this set of directions very helpful. Intro to Canning PDF!

Here are some of the pictures from my canning experience.

I hope to can tomatoes this year.

Lastly, I would like to share my favorite Banana Bread Recipe. It is seriously awesome and I guess it is considered a low-fat recipe, but I would never have guessed it. I had friends over a few weeks ago and realized I was missing an ingredients to make this banana bread, so I tried a different recipe and it was not near as good. Bummer...should have gone to the store. Oh well.


It is a betty crocker recipe in my good ole cookbook. This recipe book has all sorts of great information for cooking and baking. I use it as a reference tool ALL the time! Here is the recipe.




Makes 2 Loaves

Ingredients:
1 1/4 Cups Sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 medium)
1 tsp vanilla
dash of cinnamon (this is my addition)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup of chopped nuts, if desired (I omitted nuts and added fresh blueberries instead)

1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of two 8x4 inch pans or one 9x5 loaf pan with shortening or cooking spray. 
2. In large bowl, stir sugar and butter until well mixed. Stir in eggs until well mixed. Stir in bananas, buttermilk and vanilla; beat with spoon until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt just until moistened. Stir in nuts or blueberries. Divide batter evenly between 8-inch pans or pour into 9-inch pan. 
3. Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour (I checked mine at 40 minutes and they were done, so start checking early). 9-inch loaf pan could take 15 minutes longer. Check with toothpick to see if it comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on wire rack. 
4. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days. 

We kept 1 loaf out and froze the 2nd loaf to enjoy later. :)

Hope you enjoy!

-Court

The cure for morning sickness

   Well I wouldn't say a cure but its something that has changed my pregnancy from not throwing up ever day. Every morning before I get out of bed I take one ginger root pill, eat two saltine crackers and then I use two products from Doterra. Doterra is a pure essential oil. Jana, from my small group, sells it and I totally believe in it. So every morning I put the ginger oil behind my ears and the peppermint oil under my nose. So all those things put together has changed my mornings completely. When I started getting morning sickness and throwing up or nauseous I became so worried because my job is to make and serve breakfast to our guests. And at that time the thought of food, the smell of eggs, coffee and pretty much anything in the kitchen made me nauseous and or sick. But once I started my morning routine and used the oils it changed. I now get up every morning feeling tired but good, make and serve breakfast and I'm so blessed for that. If you're interested in the product I can give you Jana's information. Also, I used oregano for my planters wart and now it's completely gone! I also use a blend for my face and it totally helps and I also you a blend for headaches and it works too. So if you're pregnant or tired of using medication try this essential oil. It sure has changed my life. 

Vegetable Garden Part II

I should have posted this a few weeks ago, but life has been really busy for Nick and I the past month and a half! The garden is doing great. Tomatos are starting to turn red...woohoo!

Having a garden is amazing! Everyone should do it or at least try.  And you can really do quite a bit with just a little bit of space. There are so many resources out there to help guide you.

About two months ago I transplanted everything into the garden bed that Nick built. It was both good and bad. We learned that you cannot buy tomato plants and not transplant them three weeks later, you need to do it within a week--oops. Quite a few of the pods where we started seeds did not transplant well...at all...they died. I don't know if I did something wrong or it was the weather, who knows. For some things like green beans and zucchini only a few if the transplants lasted, so i had to plant more. Carrots, zucchini and green pepper did not work at all, so I ended up planting seeds directly in to the ground for those. For some reason the green peppers never grew and I bought a starter plant last weekend. We also bought sweet potato slips and planted those last weekend. The lettuce and spinach were growing great and I got a few cuts off them, but the squash plant has kind of over taken their area, so they are not growing well anymore. 

So far we have had 1 good size zucchini, a bunch of green beans, lettuce and spinach. Soon we will have lots more zucchini and tomatoes!  The green beans continue to grow and I check them periodically to see which ones are large enough to harvest. 

It's exciting to see the results from our hard work!

Nick has been putting mulch on the plants that are bigger and this seems to be helping and keeps the plants moist between watering. Unfortunately we have pesky little bugs trying to eat our plants so we

are using a pesticide, but I want to look into some natural pesticides that will work. There is also a little birdie that likes our lettuce.

The garden has truly been rewarding. It is amazing to grow your own food, I feel so productive!

We have learned a lot from our gardening experience this year and next year will we plan things out differently and plant a lot more.

Since we are doing to have tons of tomatoes, I am hoping to learn how to can my salsa and can tomatoes. I hope it goes well. 

Lastly, look how cute Nick and Shiloh are!  Just walking towards the garden. Cute cute cute. 

-Court