Recipe for Flavorful Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken Tikka Masala Over Rice

I love to shop local. There are so many great things about buying food that is made/grown close to where you live. I would love it if we had a big farm where I could raise and grow everything that I ever wanted, but until that day comes I grow what I can and buy the rest. I am a firm believer that buying local in not only great for supporting the local economy, but much better for the environment. This weekend I was able to find great heirloom popcorn at a shop in our area. It is run by volunteers and provides  fresh and packaged foods from local producers. My kids love going and seeing the new items that they have each week. There are some foods that I am unable to find locally, such as certain spices for ethnic dishes. For these items I either have friends send them to me or I order online. I grew up eating Indian food since my father worked with a number of nurses from south India and I love it. Last week I tried a new recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala from the April 2013 issue of Bon Appetit magazine.

This recipe has 18 ingredients. It takes 5 1/2 hours of total time, an hour of which is active and makes 6 servings. I did make a number of changes to the original recipe. I was unable to find chiles de arbol so I followed the recipe suggestion and used crushed red pepper. Cardamom pods are hard to find around here, so I left them out. For the marinading time I allowed the full 6 hours. My oven broiler has been broken for a while so I used my toaster broiler setting instead. The chicken did not blacken as well as it would have in the oven, but it still came out decent.

Even though the time required to prepare this recipe is long, the outcome is worth the wait. The recipe turned out delicious and the step were relatively easy. This dish was particularly popular with my husband, who loves Indian food, but is never able to order it as often as he would prefer.

For the recipe go to Chicken Tikka Masala.

Flavorful Tomato Yogurt Chicken Curry

The area which I live in is slowly getting better about having food other than pizza as dining options. We live in a college town so the majority of food involves a meal with fries or pizza, lots and lots of pizza. Since I eat gluten free pizza doesn't hold the same appeal as it did before my diagnosis. When I first moved and met my husband their were only a few ethnic restaurants and almost all of them were Mexican food. I quickly learned that I was going to have to learn to cook as many things as I could at home or be stuck with the frozen ethnic aisle (which is never great) at our local grocery store. So I bought a ton of cookbooks and failed at making a lot of dishes. However, I kept trying and talking to friends about the dishes that they grew up making in their various households and I learned that with practice all food is doable. Now I look at recipes for the flavors and feel confident that I can make a large variety of foods. Tonight I tried a new recipe for Tomato Yogurt Chicken Curry from the October 2012 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 18 ingredients. It takes 1 hour 15 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 4 to 6 servings. I made a few modifications to this recipe. Since I was cooking for my kids (and I have never actually seen them at our local stores) I left out the dried arbol chiles. 14.5 ounce cans of whole tomatoes are another rarity in my area so I bought a 28 ounce can and weighed out the needed amount of tomatoes and liquid. I had leftover baby red potatoes from another recipes so I cut them into fourths and used approximately 10 of them for this recipe. Finally I used 2 percent Greek yogurt not whole since it was what I already had in the fridge.

Using a dutch oven really does make this recipe easier to make. If you haven't already bought a dutch oven they are a great kitchen tool and make it much easier to make soups, stews and curries. Based on my family I would say that this recipe serves 4 people. If you want a larger amount or leftovers I would suggest doubling the recipe. Overall this was a nice basic Indian curry recipe that can be adjusted to suit your desired spiciness level.

For the recipe go to Tomato Yogurt Chicken Curry.

35 Minute Stewed Chicken Breast, Red Bell Pepper and Chickpeas

Today was an experimental baking day. I ran out of eggs the other day and my oldest is always very hungry when he gets home from school. Knowing that I had to think of something fast I made vegan oatmeal cookies. I knew that they were good when my youngest tried to eat the batter before it went into the oven. Needless to say the cookies have all been eaten and I think that I may have convinced my husband that vegan cooking can be delicious when done properly. Of course after all of the cookies were eaten none of my family was hungry for dinner. I decided that since the cookies were almost all oatmeal and brown rice flour, it was pretty close to a healthy breakfast food and I didn't argue too much. Making healthier baked goods has been one of my goals for the last month. I have also been trying to incorporate more chicken into my family's diet. My husband prefers pork, so I have been trying to find chicken recipes with a lot of flavor in order to trick my husband into eating them. This week I tried a new recipe for Stewed Chicken and Chickpeas from the January/February 2013 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes a total of 35 minutes, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I did make a few modifications to this recipe. First I was unable to find 6 ounce breasts. The meat selection at our grocery store is always limited so I had to use slightly larger chicken breasts. I do think that the recipe would work better with the smaller breasts if you can find them. For the red pepper flakes I used a full teaspoon and I used 1/2 teaspoon of garam masala. I chose to leave off the fresh parsley since my local grocery store refuses to stock flat leaf and I just can't get a taste for curly parsley, the texture gets to me. Since I eat gluten free I left out the pita and served the dish over quinoa which I had cooked with butter and minced garlic. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The red pepper and chickpeas are the star of this dish. The chicken cooked well and was tender, especially given that my family prefers chicken thighs. However, the best part of the dish was definitely the sauce. I thickened the sauce at the end with a small amount of cornstarch and it was great over the quinoa. Additionally, it re-heated very well the next day.

For the recipe go to Stewed Chicken and Chickpeas.

Butter Chicken

This has been a crazy week. My oldest had his last day of school yesterday and I seem to have a to-do list a mile long. I would love to say that I am super organized and am great about getting everything done. Before kids I had lists and everything was always done on time or early. All that changed after my youngest was born. With two kids there are days that my house looks like the same disaster it did at the start (even though it has been cleaned 10 plus times) and instead of taking items off my to-do list I have added more. So I have learned to keep at least a few simple meals plans on stand-by every week. Without these quick dinners things would turn into chaos at dinner time. One of the best things I have learned is to utilize my crockpot. I can normally carve out about a half an hour in the morning to prep and put everything nicely in the crockpot for dinner. Then I don't have to stress when my two boys are in the kitchen screaming for food and my husband joins in after getting home from work. The May issue of All You magazine had a recipe for Butter Chicken, which with 20 minutes of prep and 30 grams of protein, looked perfect for my busy week.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of prep and 5 hours and 15 minutes of cooking and makes 8 servings. I had the worst time finding garam masala in my area. All the large grocery stores have decided that everyone in my area only wants to buy 10 types of onion and garlic powders and little else. Insert mini rant on the horrible food choices in my state, if we aren't given quality ingredients to cook with then how do you expect our kids to grow up healthy! I digress from my rant. I was finally able to find the garam masala at the small Lebanese market by my house. This market has saved me so many times when I needed specific spices. They have a great selection and the prices are reasonable. I miss when small grocery stores were in every neighborhood and you could actually find things that were needed. I had no problems finding any of the other ingredients and made no modifications. I chose to leave off the cilantro at the plate since I was serving it to my kids. Instead of a food processor, I used my blender. Honestly, I use my blender more frequently, I find that it does a superior job when combining liquids or liquifying. My onions took much longer than 7 minutes to cook. I prefer my onions to be completely caramelized before placing in the crockpot, it makes for a greater amount of flavor. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The sauce in this recipe was delicious. There was more sauce than the magazine photo represents. I would say most of the dish is sauce and then a small amount of meat. The photo is a little misleading, it makes it seem that the dish is mostly chicken with very little sauce. Either they were using breasts with no fat or miraculously found thighs with no fat! I actually liked that the dish was full of sauce, it made a great topping to rice and still had lots of protein from the chicken. If I made it again I would pulse the sauce longer like I did so it had the larger amount of sauce, the sauce was delicious and the best part of the dish.

For the recipe go to Butter Chicken.