My dear friend Allie gave me this recipe a couple of years ago. In the form of a Facebook message. So every time I want to make this, I have to search the archives of my old Facebook messages, which really isn't the best method. I have grand ideas for a sturdy binder and transparent sleeves for recipes like this... to put together someday. In the meantime, my "For the Tummy" board on Pinterest is where I keep my online recipes.
And so I decided this recipe needed to be Pinable. For my own sake. So here it is.
serves 4 to 6
3 large chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 lbs)
2 cans coconut milk
2 tablespoons green curry paste (or much less, if spicy)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
zest of 1 lime
1/2 cup chicken broth
chopped fresh basil and cilantro
at least 4 cups cooked rice.
salt, to taste
I didn't have any limes, so I used a tablespoon of lime juice, which was perfect. The green curry paste I have is from a little local Asian market, and it's pretty spicy. So I actually only used maybe 1/2 a teaspoon so the sauce would be mild enough for my young kiddos. Then after the cooking was all done, I mixed a couple of teaspoons of curry paste with some of the sauce, and added it to what my husband and I ate. Spicy, and oh so tasty!
Get some rice going. Jasmine rice is great, but regular plain white rice is what I had on hand.
Pour (or scoop, really) coconut milk into large pan.
(Notice the different textures? The thick stuff in the back is the Trader Joe's Coconut Cream, which I love. The creamier stuff is good old basic coconut milk, which is also great. Some people prefer to use a "light" coconut milk, which is fine too, just less creamy.)
Let it melt, allow to boil, and simmer for a good 15 minutes so it reduces from about 4 cups to about 3cups. Now is a great time to cut your chicken into bite sized pieces.
Add the curry paste, fish sauce, lime zest, and chicken broth. Simmer for another 10 minutes or so.
Add chicken to sauce.
Return to boil, and let boil for 3 or 4 minutes to ensure chicken pieces are fully cooked.
Remove from heat, and scoop over rice. Garnish with fresh cilantro and basil, if desired, and serve warm.
Well technically, I suppose I'm domestic every day. But changing diapers, reading books, and cooking dinner doesn't usually make it into the glamorous side of domesticity. It's the extra stuff that gets the attention.
Last month I bottled up some delicious vanilla vodka. I was hoping it would be strong enough to use for baking, but it mixes well for sipping too. The vanilla beans had been marinading in vodka for 14 months.
Then last week I made a cake. A Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Salted Caramel Coconut Mocha Cake for our church dinner last week. (Recipe found here.) This was, perhaps, one of the most frustrating culinary experiences of my life. The cake actually turned out great. As long as you didn't notice the little clumps of baking powder that didn't mix well. But the frosting... oh, the miserable frosting. After almost two hours in the kitchen, I had completely ruined two attempts at making frosting. The spatula turned out not to be made of silicone, and didn't hold up very well to the heat of the first batch of caramel. Oops. And with the second batch, the meringue buttercream ended up more like caramely scrambled eggs. Double oops.
So I just made the salted coconut caramel and used that. Not the prettiest cake I've ever made, but it turned out alright in the end.
I've been doing various artsy crafty stuff, too. I saw a cute idea on Pinterest to make some pretend miniature tea bags out of cloth, but I figured I'd make them a little more realistic. So a couple of days ago I used a coffee filter, some brown paper, a threaded needle, and a little glue. Voila.
They fit perfectly into Chloë's tiny porcelain tea cups.
Aaand I made lots of jam. Five batches of it, actually. I unloaded the bags of frozen berries from my freezer, and got to jammin'. I know it doesn't look like much, but those pint jars hold a lot of jam! One batch of raspberry, and four batches of cherry raspberry mix. Chloë and Elaina eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Thus concludes my domestic post for this month. I'll spare you pictures of the dirty diapers. But don't worry. I really don't have any pictures of dirty diapers. From this month, anyway.
Elaina is now mobile. Three weeks ago, she would do her yoga routines, and maneuver into a half
sitting, half side reclined position. Particularly adorable when paired with this hilarious face.
Then she figured out how to army
crawl. Then she figured out how to push herself into a sitting
position, and is getting better at her balance. (There have been a few
tearful head bonks.)
Then last week she actually did a little bit of
traditional crawling.
And she started pulling herself up on furniture.
A few weeks ago, we finally pulled out the rice cereal and introduced
solids. I pureed some peas shortly thereafter, so she's been eating
mashed peas and rice cereal every evening while we have dinner. She
thinks it's pretty important to sit in the highchair and join us for a
meal. When she's done with her mash, we put a few puffed cereal pieces
on her tray. She will slam her hand down over a piece, clench her fist
around it, and sloppily attempt to get it into her mouth. Then she'll
happily slurp and gnaw on the thing until she swallows it and repeats
the process.
Here she is the day we introduced rice cereal.
Since she is so great at putting things in her mouth, I'm trying to
be extra good about keeping the floor swept. If I leave one little
cracker (or leaf or bark) crumb in a corner, she will find it. Thank
the Lord for audible gag reflexes to alert Mom.
Speaking of audible, this kid likes to talk. And babble. And shriek.
She really likes all of her aunts and uncles and grandparents.
She
just likes to eat. She likes to nurse every 2 hours around the clock.
And she usually does, except for a 4 hour stretch when she goes to sleep
around 9. Which I really don't mind too much. Selfishly, it would be
nice to sleep for more than a couple of consecutive hours, but hey, I'll
get to do that in 20 years right?
By the way, I'm
eating dairy again!! Glory, hallelujah. No really. I am so grateful for the little silly enjoyable things in life, like real cream in my coffee, and real cheese on my pizza. I re-introduced
dairy a week and a half ago, and Elaina did fantastic. I would "cheat"
here and there and have a tiny bit of dairy in something, and I wasn't
seeing any of the usually dairy induced problems in Elaina. So I just
decided to go for it one Saturday morning, and started eating dairy.
She had a couple of little spit-ups, but nothing crazy or concerning.
And no trace of her dairy-sensitive rash, and zero signs of discomfort
after nursing! I am elated to be eating a full dairy diet again. I
missed milk, but man, I really missed cheese. So it looks like
she's over the dairy protein sensitivity, although I have to try giving
her dairy directly, so we'll see how that goes.
Her eyes are still blue, although a good deal darker, and a little more gray. We'll see what happens.
I sure do love this little girl.
Wasn't I just pregnant the other day? I guess it's been four months. (This picture makes me think of when my dear sister Katie was a child.)
My favorite little Hammy Cakes.
Elaina is an absolute doll. She is such a good baby. She is rolling over, using her hands to grab at things, bouncing all day in her bouncy chair, eating like a champion, talking and cooing like she's telling some great stories, sleeping decently, and smiling constantly.
It's funny to me that she only kicks with her right leg, but she sure does get than chair bouncing.
When I'm not holding her or carrying her around in the Baby Bjorn (her favorites), she's pretty content to just hang out in her bouncy chair, swing, or lie on a blanket on the floor. She loves looking at pretty colors and patterns, and is completely mesmerized whenever we go outside.
I cut dairy out of my diet a couple of weeks ago. It's been hard, because I really do love milk, cream, cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, yogurt, cream cheese, and ice cream. But alas. Ever since Elaina was a couple of weeks old, I noticed a faint bumpy rash on her cheeks. Then the baby acne hit. But after the acne cleared up, she still had tiny little bumps on her cheeks. I knew that could be a symptom of dairy sensitivity, but she seemed like such a cheerful kid, I figured she wasn't in any pain. I had also noticed that Elaina's spit up was chunky; like cottage cheese (sorry, I know this is getting into the gross category). Then last month she started spitting up more and more frequently.
Then within the last month came the fussing. After she nursed, she would be quite miserable and almost impossible to console for quite a while. The only thing that seemed to help was putting her in an upright position, and pressing her tummy against something. Sometimes she would gurp up large amounts constantly between feedings. I wondered how the poor thing was gaining any weight.
So I finally decided I'd see if eliminating diary in my diet would help. Babies can be sensitive to the protein casein, found in cow (and sheep and goat) milk. So all forms of milk. Except butter. Since butter is milk fat, it only has a very small amount of protein in it. So I can "cheat" and have a little dairy that way. I've discovered the wonderful world of expensive dairy substitutes, and am very grateful that I like coconut so much. (A little fatty coconut milk in my morning coffee has been such a simple pleasure. And coconut milk ice cream? Wow.)
Within a couple of days, Elaina's cheeks were less bumpy, and she was only spitting up small amounts of slightly chunky stuff. She wasn't as fussy after eating. Now that it's been over two weeks, her cheeks are silky smooth, her spit up is never chunky, and she's the most content and cheerful baby in the whole wide world. So I'm just going to assume that the correlation is strong enough to assume causation. We'll try re-introducing dairy at some point and see what happens.
She does still fuss once in a while, as all babies do. But I do believe the child may have begun the teething process. She's been drooling, and chewing on her fingers quite a bit lately. We still call her Tiny more than anything else. She also gets Chubs McGee, Chub Nugget, Baby Blue Eyes, Sweety, Sweetheart, Honey, and Smushy. I've started calling both the girls Sugar all the time.
My happy girl, jabbering away first thing in the morning.
She's seriously cute when she talks.
She is much like her big sister when it comes to sleeping routines. We still swaddle her at night, and she goes right to sleep as soon as we lay her in her bassinet. We don't swaddle her for naps, so she squirms around until she finds something to rub her forehead against. If she's having trouble falling asleep, I just put my hand on her forehead and she's out like a light.
Elaina has started using her hands a lot, and likes to grab things: my hair when I lean over to give her kisses. Her clothes or blankets. And sometimes even her mobile.
We actually haven't had any well-child visits yet, so that's why I have't had any accurate measurements since her birth. Sometimes we use the digital scale at Bryan's parents' house, and a couple of weeks ago she weighed in at about 13 pounds. We have her first appointment in a couple of weeks, and she'll get her first round of selective shots.
Elaina loves hanging out with other kids, particularly her sister. I never get tired of watching my girls interact.
I've made bread a hundred times in the past, and have always had great success. But it always seemed like a big project... exact measurements and temperatures, kneading and multiple rises; it could take all afternoon.
But really, this bread is so easy, I almost feel like I'm somehow cheating. I gave the book back to my friend Hope, but haven't forgotten this super easy recipe:
Find a large bowl. Dump in: 3 cups lukewarm water 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast 1 1/4 tablespoons salt 6 1/4 cups all purpose flour (I usually use a cup of whole wheat flour) Stir it up for a minute or so, until the flour it all moist. It doesn't matter if it doesn't look perfect. (The canner has nothing to do with the bread. I was just too lazy to move it.) Cover it with a non-airtight lid. Leave on the counter or somewhere room temperature, and ignore it for two hours. Then it will look like this: Then cover it, and put it in the fridge, for at least 3 hours, but up to two weeks. Yes really. When you want a fresh loaf, use a serrated knife, and cut off a quarter of the dough. (Or you can just quarter it up and bake it all at once. If I want larger loafs, I just cut it into thirds and bake it a little longer.) Sprinkle some cornmeal somewhere, and shape the dough, patting it with a little bit of flour when you're done shaping it. Let it "rest" for about 40 minutes. (The book talked about how it was important for the dough to rest, even though it does most of its rising the first few minutes it's in the oven.) About halfway through the "resting" turn your oven on to 375. If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven and let it heat up. After the 40 minutes are passed, take the pizza stone out of the oven, and gently transfer your dough. Use a serrated knife and cut some slits in the dough. Put the stone on the middle rack in your oven, and then put about a cup of water in a pan, and put it on a lower rack in the oven. The evaporating water is part of the magical process. Then wait 35 minutes. Then take the bread out, and let cool on a rack. It smells really good. You can drool a little, if you want. It slices best if it's almost cool. If you slice it while it's hot, it will still feel a little "dough-y" on the inside. I'm not sure how well it keeps, because we always eat it within a day.
Buy the book. It has dozens of recipes that you can use the basic dough for: all sorts of savory things, and even cinnamon rolls.
So easy. Basically no dishes. And so worth it. Do it.
My friend Sarah asked me to help her plan the menu for our church's big Easter Feast in May. We tossed around ideas and recipes, and decided on an Indian theme.
We had some friends over for dinner this week, so I experimented with our main recipe for the second time. There are so many great spices in this dish, but the recipe we had was a bit vague on some of the measurements. The first time I made this I used whole cloves and cardamom, but I found that it was a bit tricky to find and remove them once the cooking was complete. And a cardamom pod is quite a potent thing to chomp down on. So I used ground spices for the cloves and cardamom, and didn't have to worry about finding them before serving. The bay leaves and cinnamon stick are easy enough to fish out. For you locals, I had to get the ground coriander, cloves and cardamom at the Co-op. Everything else I was able to get at Winco.
3 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces 1 teaspoon coriander powder 2 teaspoons chili powder 1 teaspoon ginger powder 1 teaspoon granulated garlic 3 teaspoons salt 1 tablespoon olive oil 5 whole cloves (or 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves) cinnamon stick, about 2 inches long 4 green cardamom (or 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom) 2 bay leaves medium onion, diced 3 green chillies, chopped finely (or an 8 oz can) 2 cups white rice, uncooked 2 cups broccoli, chopped 2 cups coconut milk (15 oz can) 1/2 cup diced tomato 1 1/2 to 2 cups water
1. Combine coriander powder, chili powder, ginger powder, granulated garlic and salt, mix well with chicken pieces. Set aside to marinade, 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Heat olive oil in large skillet, add cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaves, diced onion and chopped green chillies. Saute on medium heat until onions are tender, 10 to 20 minutes.
3. Add chicken and stir frequently. Fry until mostly done, about 10 minutes.
4. Transfer to a large pot. Add rice, chopped broccoli and diced tomato, stir for a minute over medium heat. Add coconut milk and water.
5. Place lid on pot, turn heat down to low, stir occasionally, and cook until rice is done, about 30 minutes.
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