Don’t feel bad if you didn’t have as nice of weather as we did this past weekend, because we totally paid for it today!
(PS you know it’s spring in the Midwest when I mention at least one weather-related item in each post. It turns on a dime, I tell ya’. Snow one minute, 90 degrees the next – it’s too crazy not to share!)
Anyways, the wind howled all day long, and I don’t even think we reached above 40 degrees. To top it all off it looked gorgeous outside, which was just a kick in the you know what. What a tease! 
Running outdoors was obviously out, so I headed to the gym after work. I so loved the 5-4-3-2-1 Interval Routine I tackled on Friday, that I did it again today, followed by 18 minutes on the stair stepper doing my 3-2-1 Stair Stepper Routine.
In case you can’t tell, when I’m using machines at the gym, I have to have routines where I can count down/check off chunks of time. Otherwise I just stare straight ahead feeling like I’m on a hamster wheel, wanting to pull my hair out. You understand.
Came home to the most gorgeous smelling dinner which combined two of my very favorite things: exotic flavors + crock pot dinners. Slow Cooker Coconut Curry Chicken!!
Slow Cooker Coconut Chicken Curry
Serves 2*. Adapted slightly from Salt & Paprika.
Ingredients:
1/2 large onion
1 small green bell pepper, seeded & quartered
2 garlic cloves
1 small can tomato paste
1 can lite coconut milk
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon curry powder
1 Tablespoon Garam Masala
1lb chicken breasts, cut into big chunks
Salt & pepper
1 Tablespoon water
3/4 Tablespoon cornstarch
Directions:
1. Place onion and bell pepper into a food processor. Process until finely chopped. Add in garlic cloves, tomato paste, coconut milk, salt, curry powder and garam masala, then process until smooth (may need to separate into 2 batches to fit in a smaller sized food processor.)
2*. Place half of the sauce mixture into a ziplock bag and freeze for making this dish a second time. Season the chicken with salt & pepper, combine with the remaining sauce, and cook in a crockpot on low for 4 hours.
3. After 4 hours, dissolve water and cornstarch together then add into the crockpot. Keep the lid cracked and cook on high for 10-15 minutes. If you’re running short on time, transfer sauce to a pan and simmer on medium heat for 3-5 minutes, or until sauce is thickened.
4. Serve over a bed of rice!
Yummy!!!!
I’m not usually a "sauce" girl, but I drenched my rice in this crazy-flavorful stuff. Coconut milk + garam masala is like Oreos + milk. Made to be together!
To go with the delicate flavors of the coconut curry, I served fluffy, tender Jasmine Rice underneath.
If you’ve never had Jasmine rice, you need to run out to the store to buy it now. Like, right now!
Where regular white rice – the kind you get at your favorite Chinese joint – is short, sticky & dense…
Jasmine rice is long, delicate and light as air. You can usually find it right in the bulk bins at your grocery store.
The smell of it cooking is absolutely incredible. It almost smells like popcorn! Not Orville’s Butter Lovers, mind you, rather, natural popcorn popped in olive oil. MMM!!!
PS I always cook my rice with a dish towel around the lid, secured with a skewer and clothes pin. One of my biggest kitchen pet peeves is goopy rice-starch that bubbles out of ill-fitting pot lids and burns on the stove. I HATE IT!
Sometimes when I forget to use the above method for cooking rice, and I leave the dried-on crust on the stovetop for a couple days (if I don’t look at it, it doesn’t exist) Ben likes to surprise me by scraping it off. BAHAHAHA. Oh, married life.
Anyways – back to this dish. So easy and exotic tasting, but not so exotic that it’ll freak out your non-exotic-food-eating family or friends.
Plus it tastes freaking amazing when slathered on a piece of Naan. You’ll want a little cup of sauce reserved just for this purpose! 
Alllrighty. I’m off to do…work. Eep. I’m so busy that 10 hours at the office isn’t cutting it right now. Lots to do, so little time to do it!
Have a great night!
~~~~~
Do you prefer cooking with a gas or electric stove?
I grew up with an electric, which is what I have now too. I had a gas in my first apartment in Minneapolis after college, and I always felt like I was going to burn the place down with it. Plus I felt like it was so hard to clean…
To each their own!
That looks absolutely delicious!! I totally agree about the needing a machine-routine, too. Somehow having those check off points makes all the difference! I’m going to have to try out that 5-4-3-2-1 interval routine…
I’ve been loving coconut lately – so this looks fantastic!
My husband and I would love this dish!
I’m off to do work too, I’m teaching a math camp in the AM, regular teaching day, and then prepping for a sub Wednesday AM after school on Tuesday. There is never enough time!
I am a big fan of sauce and probably like it more than the actual “meat” of whatever it’s in
I feel your weather pain! it was 85 here Saturday and snowed all day yesterday!!! Ugh!
I grew up with an electric in Iowa and now have a gas stove… Supposedly they are preferred by professional cooks and all that, but I always feel like I’m going to burn the place down, too! Especially when there’s a really big burst of flames when I turn on the burners! Sometimes way too close to my hair for comfort – eek! Plus I hate the smell of gas and am always convinced there is going to be a gas leak. Sigh. Someday I’ll have an electric stove again!
LOVE this. Cant wait to make it!! My husband doesnt eat cooked veggies….yep, notta one. salads, yes. Nothing cooked though. So to find a great recipe that I can do in the crockpot or in anything for that matter that is SEMI healthy is very hard! Thanks girl!
I love jasmine rice!! This meal looks delicious, it reminds me of what I get a pei wei kinda….. which is my all time fav. meal!
I prefer gas, but I have electric….it came with the house when I bought it.
love your rice cooking set up! hilarious
i’ve always had an electric stove, and i think a deal breaker on a house would be having an electric stove. i don’t like gas even though it’s better cooking/temperature control. i’ve used them and feel like i’m gonna start a fire…and im terrified enough of fire as it is, i don’t need my kitchen to make me even crazier!
That looks delicious! It was nice here with big puffy clouds and blue sky but it was cold because of the wind. I’ve only ever used a gas so I like them.
I prefer electric….I’m scared of gas stoves! I’m scared to burn the house down, too!
This meal looks great! I need to try it out! I’ve never had jasmine rice…I need to try it!
I grew up with electric stoves, and couldn’t figure them out to save my life–I was constantly burning stuff on the outside, and leaving it raw on the inside. When my sister & I moved in together, our apartment had a gas stove & I LOVED it. I could actually COOK and it wasn’t charred or raw! When I moved to SoDak, my future husband had electric, which I had to learn to use all over again. And when we bought our house it came with an electric stove, which we had to replace when it died a year later!
Don’t know that I’ve ever had curry. I will have to try it. As for stoves, I’ve cooked with both, but definitely prefer gas. So much easier to control. We had rain all day. I hope that means we’re going to have an abundance of spring flowers!
April is such a tease! But that dinner you make is not at all! Wow, it looks amazing!!!
Recipe looks amazing and jasmine rice is fabulous. I’ve learned to cook on gas and still have it. House came with an electric stove and it went out to the curb the first day. I am kinda jealous of the ease of cleaning flat top electrics though.
seriously, that’s the craziest thing…i have it bookmarked from tasty kitchen to make the SAME thing tomorrow night…..just noticed it’s from saltandpaprika….great minds think alike i guess! hope it’s good….! and btw…love jasmine rice….have you ever made couscous using orange juice for the liquid instead of water or chicken broth…super good and we eat it all the time!
The wind has been HOWLING here in Virginia, too. But at least we got that warm weather you had yesterday–80! Woohoo! Hopefully, your 40 won’t follow tomorrow! :/
I am fine with both gas and electric. Given that I’ve lived in about 400 gazillion different apartments, I’ve had both, and don’t have a preference for either. My parents used to have a flat top electric stove, but it got dirty so easily and was really hard to clean, so I guess I’d go gas for that reason . . . But then, when stuff falls down below the grates, gas can be a pain to clean, too. Love how my answer isn’t really an answer and has nothing to do with cooking and everything to do with cleaning! Ha!
I prefer cooking with electric even though I haven’t had one in over 10 years. Gas stove are harder to clean and only know two settings: hot and hotter, lol. I would probably miss gas if I go back to electric, though.
Haha, Spring in the Midwest is nutty. My allergies are raging, but it’s an adventure? Gotta look on the positive side, right?
I’ve never really cooked on a gas stove, but when I was looking at apartments in D.C. they all had gas and my SIL was really excited at the prospect of me having a gas stove. I feel like I’d definitely worry about starting a fire!
I was tricked by the damn midwestern weather today! It looked so sunny out and the birds were tweeting up a storm so I hoped on my bike and was almost blown off from the wind! Holy cow! I might have wind burn
I made a similar recipe for dinner tonight!
I grew up with an electric stove but now I have gas. I think I prefer the gas stove but I do hate cleaning it!
this reminds me of some orange chicken I made the other day. Any good tips on what to do with the left over sauce. It gets rather clumpy (you know how corn starch is) and microwaving it doesn’t really make it liquidy again. I tried putting it back to warm in a skillet but I hardly had any sauce left. Hmm. I ended up just sticking with microwaving it and mixing it all up with brown rice. I guess I can’t expect too much from left overs.
My non-exotic-food-eating boyfriend loves the look of this…we’ll have to figure out a vegetarian version for me
Wowwww – that chicken looks delish. I got home so late tonight that I didn’t have time to cook (per usual). I was hoping to find a post to refer my readers to if they were looking for nice home-cooked meal. Wish I had seen this earlier!
Yes midwest weather is quite unpredictable (one of the things I DON’T miss about good ol’ Omaha). Have a great night
I grew up with an electric stove and now have gas. I love gas so much more! My favorite feature is that when you turn off the gas, the burner is instantly cool…no risk of burning yourself on a cooling electric burner, as I’d been known to do.
The curry looks AMAZING! We had Indian-inspired food for dinner, too.
I prefer gas stoves for speed, but we have electric. We are getting a new stove thursday! So excited, it is a flat top one. And a new dishwasher too!
I grew up with a gas stove and really like how it cooks, but… I once had to use a match to light a burner and somehow the burning end of the match broke off and burned a hole in the floor – lol. I can’t stand my electric oven now – it does not bake evenly at all. I’m not sure if it’s just my current oven or if it’s all electric ovens.
I think the gas stoves are cute – but electric is just easier for me! Yummy dinner!
i have a bottle of garam masala so thanks for the recipe! love jasmine rice with curry.
my mom has always cooked on a gas stove so it was different learning for me on an electric. i still prefer gas, i feel the heat reaches the pan better and there are some things that just turn out better with a real flame.
I like electric stoves, gas ones make me nervous! I suppose if I owned one or if my parents had growing up I would feel a little better about it.
I LOVE gas stoves — it’s so much easier to control the temp as the flame adjust immediately when you turn the dial.
Question for you — do you put your pots & pans in the dishwasher? I used to until I realized that the dishwasher ruins the outside finish. I now hand wash all pots & pans (and good knives for that matter) in order to give them a longer life. Plus they just look nicer
Mary
I hand wash my good knives and Dutch Oven, but dishwasher the rest of ‘em. I have no patience for hand washing!
Our weather is always so similar here in Germany- Very unpredictable. Anyway, I very much prefer electric. I don’t love “flames” in the house, except for scented candles! We had gas growing up but more recently my mom got an electric, and if we ever get out of this country, hopefully I’ll have a nice electric range. You’re right- easy to clean!
I had gas stoves in my home and have had electric in my apartment. I didn’t cook much until I had an electric stove so that is what I am used to now. I got one of those Breville Smart Ovens which is a combination convection and toaster oven and it’s AMAZING. I love the small size and not having to heat up a big oven. I haven’t used my big oven since (O.K. I do use the cooktop, lol.)
As for intervals, I love them. I’d never make it with doing the same thing continuously. The nice part about a gym is having someone next to you-I love to try to beat the other person, (secretly), but it keeps me from getting bored.
That looks yummy and I’ve never heard of the towel trick until now! Very cool indeed. However, GAS all the way. I have a gas stove top right now and I love it! It’s so much easier to control what you are cooking. I hope when I get an adult house someday that I’ll be able to get a gas stove and oven! Oh, I tried your burrito bowl last week. I kept saying to my husband…I should have bought chips. But when I bit into it, the flavors were amazing. It’s all in the rice that’s for sure
Gas, gas, gas FOR THE WIN! In Asia, we use gas stoves and somehow, our food attain a ‘wok hei’ (loosely translated as fiery heat) flavour, which is the same taste that a freshly, well-cooked Asian stir-fried vegetable/noodle has. The whole crunchy, hot off the stove taste. When I’m studying in Iowa, I use electric stove and somehow, the flavor is gone! So its back to gas, and honestly I can easily tell if i didn’t forget to off the stove by accident.
Dinner looks delicious! I love coconut flavor. Yum! I prefer cooking on a gas stove. At my last apartment I had electric and I think everything takes so much longer. It’s quicker on gas.
I prefer gas! It’s so much easier to control the temp with a gas stove (you can turn the flam up or down and get immediate results). I’ve had mostly electric since moving out of my parents’ house, so I’ve gotten used to it, but I would definitely choose gas if I had the option.
I prefer gas, but I grew up with it and I think that is the key to which you prefer.
You should invest in a rice cooker. We had one before that was only a rice cooker, and upgraded to a combo slow cooker/rice cooker and it’s AMAZING.
I have one – got it for my wedding – but I just hate lugging it out. It sits unused, taking up space in my cupboards! Maybe I could sell it on Craigslist…!!
I can’t believe you don’t use your rice cooker!! I use mine every single day…no kidding. It’s so much easier to make all kinds of different grains and not worry about various cooking times, etc. It’s so easy!
Besides I set it the night before with my oatmeal or steel cut oats or buckwheat or quinoa (you get the idea) and breakfast is ready when I get up.
I think you should try using it again before you sell it.
Love my gas stove! I grew up with electric and didn’t think I’d like the gas but my husband wanted a gas cooktop when we remodeled 2 years ago. I don’t think I would go back! We do have the flat top grates so you can slide pans around like a flat top electric stove and the grates are really easy to lift off for cleaning. I don’t know if I could switch to a gas oven though – still have electric for that.
Gas!!! I love how you can control the heat temperature so much better than electric. If I need to simmer something quickly from a boil it is quick and easy. Cleaning is another story. My husband gets that fun job. It’s a process to say the least!
Gas all the way! I am waiting for our stove to go out, then we are getting a 6 burner gas stove so in the winter we can roast marshmallows and it makes heating up tortillas so much tastier!
I am a gas stove lover all the way!
I love Basmati rice, that one smells so wonderful as well.
I love a gas stove, but unfortunatly, I have an electric.
I mean, I feel safer with an electric, because I just hate knowing gas is being piped into and under my residence! Hate that. But love the cooking experience.
The recipe looks to die for….
This recipe looks awesome! I went and bought the ingredients to make it this week, but couldn’t find Garam Masala. I live near Detroit, which has a large Middle Eastern population, and stopped at 3 different stores, including one Eastern market, but couldn’t find it. Ironically, a friend of mine who lives here (who also follows your blog) is back in Des Moines visiting family. Can you tell me where you got the Garam Masala so I can ask her to grab it there so she and I can make it together? Thanks so much!!!
I found my garam masala at Target, of all places!
I actually prefer an electric stove so I dont have to smell all the fumes. My parents have gas and I have electric and I feel electric is healthier.
That dish looks amazing! I love the idea of incorporating coconut milk. I once had it in the rice as well- DELICIOUS!
I love coconut! I also have been loving Nutiva Virgin Coconut Oil lately – has a slight coconut smell and flavor that goes nicely with just about anything. I’m so glad the storms are over.
Hey, did anyone see the piece on ABC News this morning about food addiction? It was pretty interesting… There’s a link my blog, or you can check it out at: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=4a83e38543887c4afe93c2cfcd7a588d. Have a great evening everyone.
This looks delicious! I’m not a huge fan of coconut milk, but I bet I’d like anything if it was put on top of naan
Definitely gas. I also had electric growing up but culinary school changed me forever…haha