One of my top ten favorite meals

Coconut Chicken Curry

I never knew this stuff existed until Matt ordered some food to-go from a Thai place I'd never been to. I was 22 years old. It was so delicious. Then we moved away from that restaurant and I had to figure out how to make it myself. I've tried at least 5 different recipes. Last week I found one close to the taste we were looking for.

Coconut Chicken Curry- adapted from recipezaar

1 T. olive oil

2 T. fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped

1 clove minced garlic

1 yellow onion, sliced into strips

3 T. Thai red curry paste (we found at walmart)

4 cups chicken broth

3 T. oyster sauce

2T. sugar

2-14oz. cans coconut milk-lite or regular

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 T. Siracha sauce (asian chili sauce in clear bottle with a rooster on it)

2 boneless chicken breast, bite size pieces

3 small potatoes, sliced into half circles

1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 tomato chopped

juice from 1 lime

cilantro to garnish

whew! that's a lot of ingredients.

Heat oil in large soup pot. Add ginger, garlic and onion. Stir fry for one minute.

Mix in curry paste.

Add chicken broth, oyster sauce, sugar and potatoes. Bring to boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender. About 15 min.

Add coconut milk, chicken, mushrooms, tomato, lime juice, hot sauce and red pepper.

Simmer until chicken is done cooking. About 10 min.

Taste the curry and add more heat or sugar. If you want it thicker like we did. Make a cornstarch slurry. Then garnish with cilantro leaves. Perfect with jasmine rice.

Serves 6.

The flavors taste even better the next day! We had this last night. My Mother in Law had never had curry before and she loved it. I just figured out last night that my nice china bowls match my cheapy square plates. I'm now going to eat leftover curry for lunch :)

Chipotle Chicken sandwich with sweet potato fries

Caramelized onions, mmm!
This was the bomb! I like to create a "restaurant" type meal once a week. The chicken was seasoned with chipotle powder, sea salt and pepper. I pounded the chicken flat with a large metal spoon. That was fun! Then browned in olive oil over med.high heat. Matt requested caramelized onions so those were added to the almost done chicken to cook until soft. I made a sauce to go on the sandwiches with a mixture of mayo, honey and grey poupon. Yum. All of these flavors made a great combination.

The sweet potato fries were cut into wedges and seasoned with cajun seasoning and brown sugar. Then drizzled with olive oil. The flavor is similar to the fries at Wing Stop. Bake @ 400 for 30 min. and flip the fries half way through. We dipped the fries in the extra honey mustard sauce. We might have to eat this for dinner next week as well!

Picnik

If your looking for a fun way to edit your pictures then Picnik.com is perfect for you! I'm not talented in the photo editing area so I spruce up my pictures with different options on picnik and it's free. Here's a few of the options to choose from.

Lomo-ish

Pencil Sketch


Collage

1960's

My favorite tool is Boost which makes the colors in the picture stand out and you can adjust. I think the 1960's option is fun to use on my little girl's pictures outside. I don't have a very good camera so I have to edit almost every picture that I want to use. Do you use picnik?

Coconut Shrimp with Jordan

So, I strayed from my meal plan for the week. My hubby had to work late so I didn't thaw out anything. Then I made whatever I craved at that moment and it was Coconut Shrimp! Glad Jordan showed up for dinner and to help out.

So good! The sauce was just a cup of apricot jam mixed with 2 T. Dijon mustard. We went to the naughty side and tossed seasoned fries into the FryDaddy as well! Coconut Shrimp recipe from TastyKitchen.

Me and Jordan last weekend at Jaley's birthday party. Thanks for cooking with me sister!

New recipes to try

It's been a while since I planned out our meals for the week. What can I say? I've been lazy and growing a baby makes me more forgetful. But my husband is really getting tired of the go-to burger run.

Meals for this week-

Turkey Meatballs and Whole wheat spaghetti with green beans

Steak with homemade mashed potatoes made with light sour cream

Honey Mustard Chicken with Jasmine Rice and broccoli *excited to try this* this recipe calls for bone chicken with the skin. I'm using skinless, boneless.

Buffalo Chicken Wraps *also new recipe*

Lunches are Turkey Sandwiches or Ground Turkey Black Bean Burritos. I made the burritos today and froze them to reheat whenever. I've made these in the past and they are better than the frozen processed stuff. This time I put brown rice, cheese, ground turkey seasoned with homemade taco seasoning, onion, hot sauce and black beans.

Guess what my grocery bill was for the week? 62.00! That's awesome and I even splurged on some beauty products. The reason it was more affordable was because I already had most of the protein items in my freezer.

Hope you all have a great week and find a new recipe to try! I gotta go stop my daughter from eating lipgloss.

Lemon Chicken Pasta with Squash

My dad went through a phase of making this all the time when I was in highschool. One of my favorites from home.

My parents and Jordan came over for dinner last week. Here's my version of Dad's pasta-

Lemon Chicken Pasta with Squash

2 large boneless chicken breast, cubed

lemon pepper

dill weed or try oregano

1 yellow squash chopped

1 zucchini chopped

1/2 small onion, diced

1 tsp. minced garlic

3 T. olive oil

1 box whole wheat angel hair pasta

1 large lemon

1.Start by seasoning the chicken with lemon pepper and dill weed. Heat 1 T. olive oil over med.high heat. Add chicken and garlic. Cook until white then add onion. Brown the chicken then remove from the pan.

2.Boil water and get pasta ready in another pot.

3.Pour more olive oil in the pan if it needs it. Add the squash and zucchini. Cover with a lid to cook faster. When the veggies get tender add back the chicken and heat through.

4.Once the pasta is done add the chicken & veggies to the pasta. Squeeze lemon juice all over the mixture and add a drizzle of olive oil. Serve with some Parmesan cheese on top!

As you can see, this makes a lot. This served 5 adults and one child.

Homemade Mozzarella Sticks!

What did I think of these?! Mmmm,oh my tastyfied! The Pioneer Woman recently put a recipe up for these. Recipe HERE.

I had to improvise and use crushed rice crispies mixed with italian bread crumbs instead of Panko. Worked perfect. Matt and I were dipping these in marinara and ranch!

Even though I used my deep fryer the cheese sticks did not taste greasy or heavy. Love a cheap and easy recipe!

Easy Chicken Tacos

Now that the temp is usually 90 or higher I'm using the slow cooker more. Here's what I made yesterday-

Shredded Chicken for Tacos

4 frozen or unfrozen chicken breast (I used frozen)
1 cup sliced banana peppers with the juice from the jar included
3 T. taco seasoning

Mix the banana peppers and taco seasoning together in the slow cooker. Add the chicken breast and cook on low heat for about 4 hours. Then shred the chicken with 2 forks and add back to the slow cooker until ready to serve.

This was on the mild side. Just add more peppers if you like it hot.
Recipe adapted from recipezaar.

Matt and I would eat this again. Our tacos consisted of refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream and hot sauce.

Unique Playhouses

Pirate Style! find here.
Whimsical! Find here made by Judith Needham. Link not working.

Vacation home! Find here.

Violet's 3rd birthday is coming up in July. I've been looking at playhouses by Little Tikes and Step2. They are all really cute. But most seem on the small side. The beach house above makes me want to recruit my dad and husband to build her one of those. I know it could be done and I'd have a blast designing and painting it. But it would be hard to move when our lease is up in a year and a half. Maybe we should wait to build one. My parent's built us girls a big white cottage one and let us help paint the outside.

The beach house is 2 thousand plus shipping! Wow. But very cute. Gotta make up my mind soon on getting a temp. playhouse for now or not.