Polynesian Chicken Stew

So, yesterday I came home in the cooking mood. I wanted to eat real food food. I didn't take anything out the day before to defrost so when I got home, I threw some chicken breast into my defrosting bucket of water and decided I was going to make Polynesian chicken stew. Now, is this recipe authentically Polynesian? Probably not. I came across it in some magazine a year or so ago, maybe more and have tweaked it to my own taste but, I like it, everyone I've served it to has liked it and so Polynesian Chicken Stew it will stay.

Polynesian chicken stew (this is enough to last a few days)

4 boneless chicken breast
1 large onion
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
4 cloves of garlic
curry powder (I never measure, I just shake until it looks right)
ginger
chili powder
cumin
cumin seeds (optional)
garlic salt (just a little)
olive oil
1 or 2 cans of pineapple chunks (depending on my mood)
1 can of coconut milk
1 bottle of regular barbecue sauce

Dice peppers, onion and garlic

So, after the chicken is defrosted, cut it up into little chunks and sprinkle with garlic salt, curry powder, chili powder, cumin powder and ginger. Heat a big sauce pan on a medium flame and add olive oil. To the hot olive oil, add veggies and saute for about a minute or so. Add chicken chunks and cook until the outside beigins to turn white. Add more seasoning to your taste (personally, I like mine spicy so I add a lot of the chili and cumin powder). Stir around a bit then cover pot with lid. Let this stand and cook for a bout ten minutes.





At this time, chicken should be done and the veggies and chicken should have produced a bit of water. To this, add the coconut milk and stir around so that the milk gets a chance to blend with the already present fuid. Turn fire to medium and let this stand for about ten minutes.



Add the barbecue sauce and again stir to get the sauce incorporated. Let simmer for about ten minutes. Then, add the pineapples, juice and all, again letting simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Stir then serve with coconut rice, plain rice, basmati rice or a good hearty bread.

I don't have a finished product picture because truthfully, I forgot but since I made so much, I will be having this for lunch tomorrow so, I will snap a pic then.


Tomorrow:

Ethnic Turkey Burgers

Opening

So, I'm a creative kind of girl. I sew, bake, garden, cook, paint, draw. I figured I would post and keep a diary of some of the things I do. If I cook or bake, I will share the recipe as I cook and bake from scratch. If I sew, I will show the inspiration as I don't use patterns. I'm hoping this will make me be more creative as I have a tendency to slack off occasionally.

This weekend, I made chicken under a brick , basmati rice and honey glazed carrots. I didn't take a picture of this because truthfully, I was on the telephone and plum forgot. I did also make chocolate chip cookies, which I did snap a picture of because I wasn't yapping my lips.









If I do say so myslef, my cookies are VERY good. My recipe is one that I've tweaked and I do from memory. Also, depending on what kind of cookie I want, I do a few things differently. For chewy cookies, I melt my butter before hand. For crunchier cookies, I use cold butter, for in between cookies, I use room temperature butter and for very buttery cookies, a use half butter and half margarine. I almost always mix with a wooden spoon, cookies just come out better to me. so here goes, sort of:

Goddess's Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks of butter (cold, room temperature or melted, or add margarine depending on end result of cookie)
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark)
1 teaspoon or so of baking powder
a pinch or so of salt
about a tablespoon of vanilla (I never measure)
2 cups or a wee bit more of flour
handful or two of chocolate chips
optional: choice of nuts

heat oven to 350. Combine butter, and sugars, mix for a few minutes, butter mixture should be light and fluffy looking. Add baking powder, salt and vanilla, mix again, mixture should be slightly loose, not too much. add two cups of flour and mix until all flour is incorporated, you may need a little more, dough should be harder to mix at this point and look sort of like the dough in the first picture. Add, choc. chips and nuts and incorporate, folding until it seems as though chips and nuts are throughout entire mixture. To get cute round cookies, take dough and roll into little balls, about 1.5 in diameter, maybe a bit more. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and place in top rack of oven. They should take about 12 minutes or so to bake, check from 10 minutes on, try not to open the oven constantly, look at cookies using the light on the oven. Let cool off on rack, or do like I do and some while they are hot. Perfection!