Coconut Curry Chicken

A little over a year ago, my husband decided to try to eliminate gluten and dairy from his diet to see if it would improve some of his health issues. Unfortunately for me, it did! After years of making gluten-filled, dairy-laden delicious food, I had a new challenge in front of me. How to make gluten and dairy free food that actually TASTES good!

So, I set off on a new quest. This one required that I basically learn a new cooking language! It's taken a year, but I finally feel like I have my feet under me, and I've got some great recipes to share!

This first one is an Indian dish. I'm thankful we like a wide variety of cuisines! Indian food can easily be altered to eliminate dairy. Most of the meat is marinated in yogurt, but warm the fatty party of coconut milk, and it makes an excellent substitute!

Anywho...enough of my rambling! On to what you came here for! The recipe!!

First, gather everything you need! Line it all up and take a pretty picture! Ha! (Notice my Trader Joe's bottle re-purposed for home-made Garam Masala!)

                                             

Next, cut up the green pepper and onion and chop it into quarters.

Then...toss the peppers and onions,(whoops! I forgot the garlic!!), coconut milk, tomato paste, salt, curry and garam masala into your food processor. Turn it on and let it run for 30 seconds. Scrape the sides and then let it run again for another 30 seconds (or so).

Put the chicken into the bottom of the crockpot. You can cut it into chunks if you want. I don't. I'm lazy! Who wants to cut up raw chicken?! Bleh!

Pour the mixture from the food processor over the chicken. I take a fork and lift the chicken up so it's totally surrounded by the sauce.

Cover the crockpot and cook on low for 6 hours!

About an hour before it's finished, make some rice. I use Basmatti and usually cook it in chicken or beef stock.

Next, pull the chicken out and either shred it or chop it up and put it back into the crockpot. Then, mix together the water and corn starch and pour it into the crockpot and let it cook until the rice is done.

An hour later....DONE! YUM!!

Scoop some rice and pour some chicken and curry sauce over your rice.

Enjoy!!

I made some peas to go with it too! Good for color, Levi will eat them, and they're yummy! :)

-------------------------------------------------------------

Coconut Curry Chicken

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

2-3 Chicken Breasts

1 whole onion, peeled and chopped into chunks

1 large green pepper, Seeded and chopped into chunks

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 can tomato paste

1 can coconut milk

1 tsp salt

1 Tbs curry powder

1 Tbs garam masala (Indian Spice Mix)

2 Tbs water

1 1/2 Tbs corn starch (or other thickener)

1 bunch cilantro (optional)

Directions:

1. Place Chicken in crockpot.

2. Put the chopped onion, green pepper, garlic, tomato paste, coconut milk, salt, curry powder and garam masala in the food processor. Process until the mixture is smooth, stopping to scrape sides if necessary.

3. Pour sauce over chicken (lift the chicken to make sure the sauce is all around the chicken) and cook on low for 6 hours (less if you have a huge crockpot like mine!).

4. An hour before serving, mix together corn starch and water until it's dissolved. Pull the chicken out and cut or shred. Add corn starch mixture to the chicken curry and mix well. Put the chicken back in and stir.

5. Serve on steaming white rice and sprinkle with chopped cilantro (optional).

Enjoy!