Chicken in an Orange Curry Sauce

I have some leftover cooked chicken breast in the fridge and was trying to figure out what to do with it. I ALSO have some leftover vegetable fried rice from one of our grocery store's Chinese takeout counter (Quality Foods ... best Chinese takeout in the valley!) and last but not least I saw a video recently on Foodwishes showing the proper technique for sectioning an orange to get perfect orange supremes and this gives me the chance to experiment with THAT as well!

So with those 3 criteria set out I began pondering what to do for supper and decided on Chicken in an Orange Curry Sauce .. sounds yummy but I am a little gun shy from my pecan crusted chicken fiasco last week, so we'll see. At the very least it allows me to use up 2 leftovers in the fridge as well as practice a new technique so it's definitely worth at least one try :) Nothing ventured ... nothing gained ....

Ingredients:

• 300g chicken breast, cooked and cubed (about 2 small breast halves or 2-3 cups)
• 2 cup Vegetable fried rice (or plain cooked rice, whatever you have on hand)
• 1 can sweet potato diced, drained
• 1/2 cup orange juice concentrate (undiluted)
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 Tbsp honey
• 1 Tbsp curry powder
• 2 Tbsp lime juice OR juice from 1 lime
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 red bell pepper diced
• 2 oranges peeled and sectioned

Directions:

1. Place rice in 9x9 baking dish, top with diced cooked chicken and drained sweet potatoes
2. Mix remaining ingredients, except the orange sections, in a small bowl and pour over chicken, if it looks too dry you can add a litle more orange juice.
3. top with orange sections
4. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or til heated through

Makes 2 generous servings or 4 if you add a side to this such as green beans or a salad

This turned out surprisingly good. Not to die for by any means but pretty decent for a leftover meal. Hot and spicy and fresh tasting. It looked kinda pretty as well with the orange sections on top. I'd make this again but not for company, while it's a good hearty meal it isn't quite guest fare. Next time I'd up the honey by a Tbsp and cut back on the ground pepper ... I included those changes in the written recipe above. I might try and cut back the sodium in this as well it was kinda 'up there' maybe use garlic powder instead of garlic salt.

The whole meal as written clocked in at an even 800 calories/serving (based on 2 servings) and you can view the complete nutritional values HERE

IA

Thanksgiving!! Sweet Potato Pecan Casserole

I must be having a grey hair week this week .... I just realized it's THANKSGIVING this weekend and I have done nothing to get ready! Wow .... I guess I am going shopping today for a bird and some other goodies. Sadly my daughter will not be making it hope for the weekend :( It's the first time we will be having our thanksgiving feast without one of my kids ... she will be missed A LOT. I was looking forward to some quality time with her in the kitchen, she loves to experiment as much as I do. I must remember to send a care package to her with some choice leftovers ... she does so love my caramelized basalmic glazed onions and sweet potato pecan casserole. Ahh well there's always Christmas. Still, it won't be the same with her absent and I know she is upset too which makes it worse. Stupid work anyway! They don't deserve her ....

Anyway in honour of my daughter who is doing fabulously at college (and work, busy girl) I am going to post her two most favourite holiday sides, starting with the sweet potato pecan casserole which became an instant family tradition after we tried it 3 years ago. Made with yams of course, which is why we call it sweet potato casserole *doh*

Sweet Potato Pecan Casserole

• 5-6 yams, medium sized about2x the size of a baking potato
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 c butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp Pure Vanilla extract ( NEVER used artificial, there's a reason it's cheaper)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 c brown sugar (or 1/4 cup brown sugar splenda blend)
• 2 Tbsp heavy cream (whipping)

Streusel topping

• 1/4 c butter (softened)
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1/2 c pecan pieces (chopped)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 bake sweet potatoes for one hour. Test for doneness, should be very soft, if not, add half an inch of water, cover with foil and continue to steam/bake until done. Cool, peel and mash with a fork in a large bowl to get sweet potato puree.
2. In a large bowl mix the sweet potato, salt 1/4c butter, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, brown sugar and heavy/whipping cream.
   
3. In a medium bowl combine 1/4c butter, chopped pecans and brown sugar to the consistency of course meal.
   
4. Put sweet potato mixture into greased 9x13 baking dish and crumble streusel topping over the top.
5. Bake 30 minutes or until done, until topping is crisp and lightly browned

This can be made a day or maybe even 2 ahead and baked while the turkey is resting after coming out of the oven and you are preparing the gravy. This clocks in at about 250 calories a serving based on a 9x13 baking dish divided into 12 servings. Full nutritional details for this can be viewed HERE. You can cut back on the sugar content on this by substituting Brown sugar Splenda for the regular brown sugar. I have not tried that however as I usually go off the tracking wagon for holiday meals ... Not sure how the blend works in a streusal topping but I suspect it would be unnoticeable in the filling so I may give it a whirl this weekend to see. If substituting brown sugar splenda you only need HALF the volume given for regular brown sugar. This would reduce the volume of the streusal topping by bulk but not by sweetness so be careful if you need more topping add more pecans rather than more splenda blend.

This is really delicious and I like it much better than my old sweet potato casserole. I have never been fond of the marshmallow topped variety, I mean ... really? marshmallows? NOT classy. This presents as gourmet and I will never go back in fact I tossed ALL my other recipes in favour of this one, that should tell you how much I like this cause I NEVER throw out recipes ;)

IA

Creamed Spinach

Spinach is really really good for you and packed with fiber and a ton of vitamins and minerals, unfortunately not many people actually like it ;)

I happen to be one of the lucky few who do, although just plain cooked really isn't my style. Fortunately there are tons of great recipes out there.

One of the recipes I rather like is for creamed spinach. The only bad thing is, as a side dish, it isn't very low cal or especially filling so I don't make it often but I usually have a few half cup servings in my freezer to feed the urge when I get one. It goes really well with grilled meat like steak so depending on your other sides, the extra calories might not be an issue, such as if you had a salad instead of a baked potato with all the fixins, for instance ;)

One of the things I sometimes do is add a half cup serving to another recipe for added oompf (no, not a word), to my chicken pot pie recipe for instance. It adds a bit of extra flavour, nutrition and the flecks of dark green add a visual component that I like as well ... the flavour enhancement is not particularly noticeable but it does add an extra dimension that adds to the overall effect so people who don't like spinach would never even know it's there ... like my son ;) I might even try adding some to my Thai Red Curry with chicken recipe next time I make it, no it wouldn't be authentic, but I bet it might taste good;)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 c butter
• 1 onion, medium (150g) I use rather large vidalia (sweet) onions so only use 1/2
• 1/3 c flour, all purpose is fine
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1.5 c milk, I use 1% or 2% depending on what I have, doesn't really matter
• 1 clove, whole
• pinch nutmeg, fresh grated OR a pinch of ground nutmeg to taste
• 500g frozen spinach, thawed, drained AND squeezed in paper towels to remove excess water

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Melt butter in saute pan and add 1 whole clove (spice not garlic) to scent the butter.
2. Add finely diced onion and saute until translucent, do not brown.
3. When onions are translucent remove the clove and add garlic (minced). Saute a few second (20-30 no more) then add flour and cook additional minute or so to take the raw taste off the flour.
4. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly.
5. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.
6. Grate a little fresh nutmeg into sauce (to taste) then add drained/squeezed spinach
7. Optional - you may add a little ground clove to taste if you like at this point but the clove taste is supposed to be just a whisper ... personally I like it a bit louder but that's just me.

This inspiration for this comes from Foodwishes, he has an excellent video up showing the original recipe. In my version I have halved the butter used to cut back on fat but this still comes in at about 200 calories for a half cup serving with 100 of those calories coming from fat. I got about 5 servings of roughly 1/2 a cup each from this.

Full nutritional details for my version can be found HERE

IA

Good morning!

Another weekend over! It was busy so I did not get a chance to post but the good news is I got a lot done outside. My husband did some work replacing our deck and I managed to fertilize and lime our lawn in preparation for the long winter slumber. I also got started painting the new fence our neighbour put up this summer. In fact I have to do a bit more of that today as the sun is shining ;)

The best news however, is that it is fall and that means fresh pumpkins! I found sugar pumpkins at one of our local grocery stores (Thrifty's) and I was floored to see them. I have been looking for some ever since we came to the Island 7 years ago and finally found the health food store would occasionally have some .. but NEVER any grocery stores ... maybe all my whining over the years has finally paid off ... heh anyway I bought 3 and I may go back for more while they are available ... I plan to process and freeze those babies so I can use my OWN pumpkin puree rather than canned ... not that there is anything wrong with canned per se ... but real pumpkin makes the BEST pie EVER imo ;)

Just as an aside ... a jack-o-lantern pumpkin is NOT a sugar (pie) pumpkin. A sugar pumpkin, also called a pie pumpkin, is much smaller ... about 6" high and maybe 8" in diameter ... the ones I have seen are relatively smooth skinned and the flesh is sweeter and less stringy, much more suited to cooking than your run of the mill pumpkin ... as I have soo often lectured my grocery store's produce manager when he tried to sell me a 10 ton tough, tasteless stringy jack-o-lantern for my fall pie baking of all things ... sheesh

Fresh pumpkin puree is easy to do and it freezes really well in a ziploc for use later in the year when pumpkins are not available.

I generally cut my pumpkins in half and pull out all the seeds and stringy bits. I then cut the halves into smaller chunks, pop them into my dutch oven with about an inch of water and then steam them until tender over low heat adding more water if necessary. When they are tender I drain the remaining water and cool the pumpkin. Once cool it's pretty easy to scoop the flesh into a large bowl and to discard the remaining bit of peel. I smash the pumpkin with my fork, some recipes tell you to throw it in a food processor and puree it but I have never found that to be necessary or beneficial. I store the pumpkin in 2c servings in freezer proof ziploc bags.

An alternative method is to cut the pumpkins and clean as above then place cut side down on a cookie sheet and bake at 300' until tender. I've never tried this method so this year I might try it with one of my pumpkins to see if there is any flavour enhancement baking over steaming.

IA