Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Dinner with the Sleepys was fun last night. Baby Josh is a sweetie and getting so big. Jesse slept through dinner, which was good. Then he woke up and amused us while he ate his dinner. And then we chilled out while Jesse roamed the living room, had a wonderful dessert of peanut butter brownies and coffee, and enjoyed good conversation.

Our dinner was very good - I think we all agreed that the chicken was delicious. It’s always a gamble to make something new for company, but as I told Beth, sometimes you read a recipe and you just know it’s going to be good. The Chicken with Green Curry Sauce is a winner. Since it is not my own recipe, I’ll let you go to the link to print it out for your own collection. I highly recommend it.

One thing I did that I think made it better than it might have been otherwise - I mixed the coconut milk, chilies, and spices together in the morning and put it in the frig to let the flavors meld before cooking. Also, I didn’t have cilantro on hand, so we didn’t have that garnish, but apart from the visual I don’t think it mattered. I’m not a fan of cilantro anyway. Next time I may use the hot madras curry powder that we have instead of the regular curry powder - or maybe half of each.

I made plain couscous and cooked plain old frozen peas. Beth asked what I did to the peas because she normally doesn’t like peas. I seasoned them when I put them in the pot and just covered them with water. Let the water come to a boil and then turned off the heat to let them finish cooking. I did spritz them with Smart Balance spray before serving. That’s it.

Beau went out to an Indian grocery to buy three kinds of flatbread - Nan, Chapati, and some other kind that I can’t remember the name. I am going to try to make my own next time though, since I found Manjula‘s YouTube tutorials. She’s awesome and makes it look super easy.

So today’s cooking tasks are underway in the crock pot, starting with the pulled chicken. Since I started with an entire bag of frozen chicken breasts, I am positive that it will take the full 8 hours (or more) to get it cooked fully. I’ll get home in time to shred it and then I’ll work on the other dishes for tomorrow’s luncheon.