Green Curry Thai Crockpot Chicken

One of my favorite dishes is Thai Green Curry. While this dish is not like the Thai Green Curry soup that you will find in a Thai restaurant, it has a similar flavor and is DELICIOUS! Oh... and extremely easy to make.

Ingredients:

4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
1 head of broccoli, chopped
1 can bamboo shoots
Thai Green Curry Paste (I used WorldFoods Thai Green Curry Paste, which isn't very spicy but is packed with flavor. I used about a half a jar of it. Some green curry pastes can be very spicy so be careful if you use a different variety... a couple of spoonfuls can do the trick.)
1 can coconut milk
Chinese Five Spice
Salt and pepper
Thai basil (Optional)

Directions:

1. Place raw chicken in the bottom of the slow cooker. Sprinkle with Chinese Five Spice, salt, and pepper. Pour coconut milk and green curry paste on top. (I also added a little bit of Thai Basil that I had frozen.) Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, high for about 4 hours.

2. Remove chicken, shred it (it should fall apart), then return it to slow cooker.

3. Add broccoli and bamboo shoots, stir, cover, and heat on low for a about another 30 minutes. (You could also add fresh Thai basil at this point for a little extra flavor.)

4. Serve over brown rice and enjoy!

Notes: You could also substitute the broccoli with something more traditionally Thai like red peppers and/or eggplant. (I had broccoli on hand, so that's what I used.)

Warning: This dish smells amazing... it may drive you crazy if you are home while it's cooking. I could hardly wait to eat dinner!

Wedding Card Album

Ever wonder what to do with all of those beautiful wedding cards that you received. Luckily, before our wedding, I saw this idea on Pinterest. Now, I'm not the scrapbooker in my family (that would be my sister L. Grace Lauer over at Grace's Scrap Attic) but I've got all the supplies and I can hold my own. So, last night I sat down to tackle this project and our huge stack of cards. I followed her directions fairly closely with a couple of improvisations along the way :) The biggest change was that I couldn't find a metal ring that was large enough to go through all of the cards. Instead, I threaded some twine through each card and tied it in a bow.

I love this idea because we get to keep all of the wishes and thoughts that our friends and family wrote in one place. It's neat, organized, and pretty. What a great keepsake!

Front Cover

Finished Book, Side View

National Martini Day!

My hubby's away tonight and I found out that it was National Martini Day... so I thought I would celebrate! I searched our liquor cabinet for something to make a yummy martini. I was thinking chocolate and some sort of berry. However, the only berry liquor we had was strawberry rum. I'm really not sure how rum would mix with vodka so I kept looking... and there it was Triple Sec. Therefore, I'm calling this my Chocolate Orange Truffle Martini. Here's to girls night in!

Sheay's Chocolate Orange Truffle Martini

1 part Godiva Chocolate Liqueur 

1 part Chocolate Vodka 

1/2 to 1 part Triple Sec (depending on how much orange flavor you like) 

Drizzle a martini glass with dark chocolate syrup. Shake over ice, strain into martini glass, and  enjoy!

(Disclaimer: Please drink responsibly and make sure that you are at least 21 before you enjoy this! BTW- I'm sure someone else has tried something like this, but I didn't bother to look it up.)

J'adore le blog!

I recently discovered this blog, The Novice Chef, thanks to a link on pinterest. I am in love with it. Last night I made her Spicy Avocado Chicken Enchiladas and they were amazing! They will definitely be a repeat dinner in our home. Her Cake Batter Martini looks fabulous and would be perfect for a birthday celebration. Someone I know needs to have a birthday party so I can try it out!

On a side note... last semester I started taking French classes. This semester I am continuing with french 102. I'm loving the language so when you see postings or phrases in French please just bare with me. I'm a bit of French language geek at this point :)

Welcome Mr. & Mrs.!

That's right I am now a Mrs.! After months and months of planning, the wedding is over and we are returning to our normal lives again. Which means I have time for cooking again! Yay :)

Yesterday, I went to potluck at a friends house. The idea was to make the crazy recipes that you've always wanted to try. Mine was this Grapefruit Guacamole recipe. It has been intriguing me for a while, but I really wasn't sure about it. Turns out it's amazing! Even Tom liked it and he doesn't like grapefruit. It is a very refreshing summer guacamole. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Recipe Notes: Rosted green chili is impossible to find in Chicago, so I used a can of the store bought hatch chilies. It was really good, but very mild. If you live in Colorado I would recommend getting the good stuff... freshly roasted green chilies. Enjoy!

Apple Cherry Cobbler

Fall is officially here!

What better way to welcome it than with crock pot apple cobbler?

Apple Cherry Cobbler

I used this basic apple cobbler recipe with a couple of tweaks. (I just can't seem to follow a recipe without changing it a little bit.) I added a handful of dried tart cherries, eliminated the ginger and some of the white sugar, and used 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup oats for the topping. The oats added a little more texture to the crust. Cooked it in the crock pot on low for about four hours. The house smelled wonderful and it tasted amazing!

I will definitely be making this again. The hardest part was peeling all the apples. Now I know why they sell those apple-core-peeler apparatuses. If I keep making apple desserts I might have to invest in one.

Easy Chicken N' Dumplings

I can't take full credit for this recipe. I got the basic idea from a comment on a crock pot website. However, the original used cream of chicken soup, which I can't have, so this is what I came up with. It was really easy and really good!

Easy Chicken N' Dumplings

2 large chicken breasts
2 tablespoons butter
1 large (32 oz) natural chicken stock
½ large white onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 celery stick, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbs dried parsley
About a tablespoon fresh Thyme*
About half a teaspoon fresh Rosemary*
Salt & pepper to taste
Garlic salt to taste
4 Grands Biscuits

Stick everything, except for the biscuits, in a crock pot. Cook on high for 4-6 hours.

After cooking time has elapsed, take a fork and break up the chicken into pieces. It should fall apart. Now, cut the raw biscuits into 9 pieces (thirds one way, then the other). Stir into hot chicken and continue to cook for 30 minutes on high. Serve hot!

*Fresh herbs are optional. I used them because I had them in my garden boxes. You could substitute dried or just use the parsley. 

Notes: 

My crock pot runs very hot. The chicken was done in about 4.5 hours. I shredded it, then turned the crock pot on serve until about an hour before we were ready to eat. I was afraid that if I left it on high the chicken would get rubbery. An hour before dinner I turned it back to high, then added the biscuits once it had heated up. It worked great - the chicken stayed nice and tender.