Jennieworld Today

Thai red chicken curry is one of my favourite ever meals! I love spicy food, although it’s a fine balance as if it’s too spicy I find that it loses flavour and I don’t enjoy it. Anyway, getting back on subject, I discovered this sort of curry a few years ago, but until recently I could only find a very convoluted recipe for making it myself which, when followed, took a long time and didn’t produce very good results. However, with the increase of ’speciality’ foods in the supermarkets, I’ve found a thai red curry paste which allows me to create my favourite dinner in a fraction of the time. And I love it! And the kids eat it up (every last drop, as my youngest would say!). Anyway, I thought that I would share it with you, as I love it so much. It’s one of those meals which is really simple and quite quick to make, but tastes as if you’ve spent a reallly long time on it! Plus, if you substitute the coconut milk for the low-fat (or even no-fat) natural yoghurt, it’s something which can be enjoyed while you’re on a diet! Bonus!

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 small red onion and 1 small white onion, finely sliced
• red, yellow and or orange bell peppers (as much or little as you want), finely sliced
• 2 sticks of celery, sliced
• 1 dessertspoon of red thai curry paste
• 1.5 teaspoons garlic puree
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 tin coconut milk OR 350ml low fat natural yoghurt
• Coriander (cilantro) to garnish

Method

1. Using a little spray oil, fry the cubed chicken breast pieces until cooked.
2. Add the red and white onion and fry until soft. Add the garlic puree and the thai red curry paste and make sure that the chicken and onion are well covered.
3. Stir in the celery and chopped mixed pepper (and any other quick-cooking vegetables that you fancy) and fry for a few seconds before pouring in the chopped tomatoes.
4. Stir well, and allow to simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the coconut milk, mix and then allow to reduce until the curry sauce has a nice consistency. Alternatively, if using natural yoghurt instead of coconut milk, stir this in just a minute or two before serving, so that it is well mixed in and heated through. This shouldn’t need to be reduced as the yoghurt will thicken the sauce considerably.
5. Sprinkle with fresh coriander (cilantro) and serve with pad thai noodles, rice or warm naan bread according to taste.

Hope you enjoy it too! My next mission is to try out a couple of versions of flavoured rice - jasmine rice or coconut rice would go nicely with this dish.

I’m trying to lose weight (again) and I’m thinking through what the best strategies would be. For example, enjoying my food too much has obviously landed me in this position of wanting to lose some weight. Therefore, should I take even more interest in food, researching new and tasty low fat recipes whilst trying hard to ignore all the yummy things on which I overindulged in the past, or should I try to tone down my interest in food and view it more as just something which we need to consume to survive? I really can’t work out which would be the best plan of action. After all, almost all the diets out there (apart from the milkshake diets, which I’d never want to try) focus on re-educating us about food, and encourage us to try new and healthy recipes. However, when I go looking for low-fat or low-calorie recipes I inevitably find half a dozen non-diet meals or sweet treats which I really want to make. I’m torn.

Through Chris and Jenni’s blog, and then Jenni’s homemaking site I’ve found a website called http://www.foodnetwork.com which has lots of really tasty looking recipes. Should I go further into this website, or will the temptation be too strong to resist?! I know that people say that a little bit of something like chocolate cake or gateau or creamy curry isn’t bad for us, but it’s the amount I carry on eating after the initial harmless bit which concerns me! I generally find that it’s better if I avoid such food temptations altogether, unless they’re being dished out by someone else and I really can’t overindulge. I am also aware that it’s very unrealistic to think that I could give up these calorie laden treats altogether, but once I’ve lost my weight and I’m on a maintenance plan, I’m sure I’ll find a way to work the occasional treat back in.

There are obviously several ways by which you can tell that you’re growing up/getting older/maturing (or whatever you want to call it). Here are some of mine;

1. You open the curtains first thing in the morning, look out at a lovely sunny day and think “great, this’ll be a good laundry day!”
2. You watch new Harry Potter films thinking more about how much the actors have grown in a year rather than about the plot.
3. It is a ‘lie in’ if you get to stay in bed until 9am.
4. You don’t look forward to the post arriving any more as you know that it will more than likely just be a pile of bills.
5. A late night means staying up later than the end of the ten o’clock news.
6. (In the same theme as no.1, and probably more for the ladies!) You are capable of having conversations about fragrances of fabric conditioners, and actually enjoying these conversations (This one actually happened to me yesterday at work)!

That’s all that I can think of for now, feel free to add some of your own!