Curried Chicken Sauté

Either you like curry or you don’t.  I didn’t use to and I admit it was because I didn’t like the smell.  I just assumed I wouldn’t like the spice until I tried it a few years ago.  Now, I crave Indian food and when I’m not sure what to eat, sometimes I’ll just have pasta and vegetables with a red curry sauce.  

This recipe for Curried Chicken Sauté seemed simple enough to make so I was eager to try it.  Chicken breasts are cooked with a simple rub of salt, pepper, and curry powder and then mixed with soft peppers and a creamy curry-coconut milk sauce.  This can either be eaten as a meal itself or over a little bit of rice.  The curry here isn’t overbearing and provides such a pleasant flavor to chicken and vegetables.  If you don’t want to try it, I won’t be offended.  But you never know, if you try it, you just might like it.

The ingredients:

Sprinkle curry powder, salt, and black pepper over chicken (I just put it on one side).

Cook the chicken breasts in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until thoroughly cooked.

Remove chicken from the pan and set aside.  In the same pan, sauté bell peppers and curry powder for 1 minute.

Add coconut milk and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for four minutes until slightly thickened.  Add in juice from half of a lime.

Cut chicken into thin slices and add to the peppers and sauce.

Additions:  None

Omissions:  None

Substitutions:

  • Fresh whole peppers for pre-sliced packaged peppers

Overall Rating:  Like It

Spinach-Feta Stuffed Shells

As I mentioned two weeks ago, I can’t stop eating spinach. Maybe my body is needing iron, who knows. I’ve had this recipe for Spinach-Feta Stuffed Shells for quite a while and this seemed like a perfect time to make them. These aren’t quite your traditional stuffed shells because they have cottage cheese and feta instead of ricotta cheese. Using cottage cheese in place of ricotta is nothing new to me because my mom never used ricotta in recipes like this but always used cottage cheese instead. It provides a different texture to these shells which works well with the spinach.

These aren’t overly cheesy which is one thing about them that I like. The tomato-basil feta adds a little bite and the parsley adds a happy freshness but the spinach is the real star of this show. If you are willing to branch out and try something a little different than your normal shells, give these a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Also consider Pumpkin-Ricotta Stuffed Shells.

The ingredients:

Cook the shells according to package directions and let cool. In a bowl, combine cottage cheese, feta cheese, parsley, salt, nutmeg, spinach, and garlic.

Pour marinara into a cold large skillet and add the basil.

Spoon the cottage cheese-spinach mixture into cooled shells and set each shell into the marinara sauce.

Move skillet to the stove over medium-high heat. Bring the sauce to a boil. Cover and reduce heat, allowing the sauce to simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve shells with crumbles of feta and fresh parsley.

Additions: None

Omissions: None

Substitutions:

  • Fat-free tomato-basil feta cheese

Overall Rating: Like It

Source: Cooking Light Magazine

Asian Lettuce Cups

Have you ever eaten lettuce wraps at an Asian restaurant and thought, “I want to make these”? Or at least, “I wish someone would make these for me”? Well, here you go. These Asian Lettuce Cups turned out exactly how I wanted them to and didn’t disappoint at all. For some reason, I expected lettuce cups to be difficult, or at least annoying, to make but they were so easy!

You brown mushrooms and ground turkey with garlic and ginger over the stove and move it to a bowl. In another bowl is mixed a simple sauce of hoisin, soy, vinegar, and hot chile sauce. These tasty cups have a slight sweetness from the hoisin, a subtle saltiness from the soy, a real kick of spice from the chile sauce and a delicious crunch from the butter lettuce and celery. The recipe calls for water chestnuts which I don’t really care for so I used celery instead but I think carrots would be great too. I think you could use ground beef or chicken here too so use whatever you like! One serving is two lettuce cups but trust me, it’s difficult to stop at just two!

The ingredients:

Heat oil in a non-stick skillet and cook mushrooms until soft. I chopped mine up a bit because I don’t like big chunks of mushrooms but feel free to leave the caps whole if you prefer.

Once mushrooms are soft, move them to a large bowl to cool. In the same skillet, add the remaining oil, turkey, garlic, and ginger. Cook until turkey is fully browned.

Move turkey mixture to the bowl with the mushrooms and add scallions and celery (or water chestnuts). Mix well.

In a small bowl, combine hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and hot chile sauce.

Spoon two tablespoons of turkey mixture into one lettuce cup and top with a tablespoon of sauce. Enjoy!

Additions:

  • Celery

Omissions:

  • Water chestnuts

Substitutions:

  • Dried ginger for fresh ginger

Overall Rating: Love It

Source: Cooking Light Magazine

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