Coconut Crusted Chicken with Spicy Peach Dipping Salsa

I apologize for the hiatus...this happened last summer, too. I've been very busy (as summers seem to go...), but also haven't really had much worth blogging about until now!

A few weeks ago I went to a girl's night at my friend's place. She served us a delicious recipe similar to this, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Coconut crusted chicken....just thinking about it makes me drool. We had peaches laying around in our fridge, and I thought...coconut....chicken...peaches...yes! I'm going to have it all!

This recipe is extraordinary, and I know I'll be using coconut to crust more than just chicken in the future. We used 2 chicken breasts for this recipe, and ate it for dinner. It would also serve as a fantastic appetizer!

*This recipe contains egg.

Coconut Crusted Chicken with Spicy Peach Dipping Salsa

You will need:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced into strips
1 egg, yolk and white lightly whipped
1 cup (at least) unsweetened coconut (I used unsweetened coconut ribbons from Whole Foods and cut them up a bit smaller to accommodate)

AND

2 peaches, peeled with pits removed
1 tbsp raw honey (optional...if your peaches are really sweet, omit! The peaches I had were not at all sweet)
1/2 tsp red chili flakes


1. Using a hand blender, blend peaches, honey, and red chill flakes until MOSTLY smooth. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

2. Dip chicken strips into egg mixture, then coconut. Cover thoroughly with coconut before placing on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

3. Once all are complete, bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Flip, then bake for another 5-7 minutes.

4. Allow to rest for 5 minutes prior to serving.


**I managed to save 2 small pieces and a little salsa before they were all devoured...here's what they look like!

Chicken Soup for the Soul With a Cold

Last Tuesday I came down with a horrendous cold. They're just so inconvenient, you know? It's putting a serious hamper on my daily activities and production levels!

Since I've been sick, I've been eating Campbell's Chicken and Rice soup like it's going out of style- but I knew there was nothing better for me than homemade.

So tonight- that was my project!
I adapted a recipe from Canadian Living- but it didn't have an essential "get better" ingredient that I wanted to throw in there- GINGER!

Here's my recipe:

Chicken Soup for the Soul With a Cold
*this recipe makes a whole lot of soup- so be ready to put some in the fridge or freezer if you can't finish it all.

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 medium yellow onion
4 ribs celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
4 small yukon gold potatoes- peeled and diced
1/2 yam, peeled and diced
1 tbsp dried thyme (use fresh if you have it!)
3 sprigs fresh parsley, diced (I had some in my garden-- use dried if you only have that)
salt and pepper to taste
5-6 cups reduced sodium gluten-free chicken broth
1/2 cup rinsed jasmine rice
1.5 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and cut into very small pieces

Heat olive oil in your largest pot--you will use only this pot for the soup.
Brown chicken thighs over medium heat.
Once browned, remove from pot- chop into small pieces and set aside for later.

Add onion and celery to the pot.
Saute for 2 minutes.
Add carrots, potato, yam, thyme, parsley, ginger, salt, and pepper.
Saute for 3 minutes.
Return chicken to pot.
Stir in broth and 4 cups water.
Bring to a boil- simmer for 5 minutes.

Stir in rice.
Cover, and cook until rice is soft- approximately 15 minutes.

YUMMY!

Yellow Yam Curry

I have the ability to make a meal out of what's left in seemingly empty cupboards. There are those days where it's been awhile since you've been grocery shopping, and you don't have the time to go!
That's the situation I was stuck in tonight, and I ended up making a delicious dinner out of what I had.

In my kitchen I had:

Can of light coconut milk
3/4 package of rice stick noodles
yellow curry paste
yellow onion
1 yam
leftover chicken stock
fish sauce
Coconut Oil

This dish ended up warm, comforting, and delicious. Perfect for Vancouver's first rainy Autumn night.

Yellow Yam Curry

3 tbsp coconut oil
1 can light coconut milk
Rice stick noodles, cooked.
2 tbsp Thai Kitchen Yellow Curry Paste
1 medium yellow onion
1 medium yam, peeled and cut into bite size pieces.
1/4 cup chicken stock (make sure it's gluten free!)
1 tbsp Thai Kitchen Fish Sauce
1 cup cooked chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces.

Instructions:

Heat coconut oil in frying pan over medium heat.
Add chopped yellow onion, and fry until soft.

While onion is cooking: boil yam pieces for 9 minutes.

Add curry paste, and combine well with onion.
Add coconut milk, chicken stock, and fish sauce.
Add chicken breast, and cooked yam.

Simmer for 5 minutes.
Serve over rice noodles.

What do I do with that chicken!?

This post is the first of a couple that I'm going to make today, and it deals with the question above.

When you're stuck for dinner, one popular thing to do is to pick up one of those supermarket roasted chickens, right? I recently did this last week for my if-i-get-even-slightly-hungry-i-think-the-world-is-going-to-end boyfriend, who truly thought he would die if he didn't mean now. So, I went out and bought a chicken.

If you're like me, I don't really like tearing it apart. I go straight for the goods. The chicken breasts on top.
Once those are gone it's definitely a bit of work to get the rest.

So what do I do with that chicken carcass!?

The answer: SOUP!

As I posted before, soup is so rewarding. I really should make it more often.
Here's my (loose) recipe for Supermarket Roasted Chicken Leftovers Soup:

Ingredients:
Chicken carcass with meat/skin/bones/all that's leftover from the pickings.
Water
1.5 medium yellow onions
Several garlic chives
Coarse Sea Salt
Rosemary
Oregano
Peppercorns
1.25 cup (approx), cooked jasmine rice
One long skinny leek- sliced thinly.
4 small/medium carrots- sliced thinly.

Put chicken carcass, bones/skin/everything, into a very large pot. Cover with water, and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, add 1.5 medium yellow onions cut into 1/4s.
Add 2 tbsp sea salt, 1 tsp rosemary, 1 tsp oregano, and 1 tbsp peppercorns.
Boil boil boil!!!
Add a small handful of garlic chives.
Boil boil boil!!!

(I boiled for over an hour. Up to you. The longer, the better, in my opinion)

Strain everything from the pot, into another large pot so all the liquid and solids are separate.
Time to sort the junk from the good stuff.
Pick out all the pieces of chicken, and discard skin, bones, cooked onions and chives, and other unidentifiables.

Add the good stuff (chicken pieces) to the liquid and put on medium heat.
Add leek, carrots and rice.
Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Cook until the carrots can be pierced with a fork.

Enjoy!

Dinner Idea: Baked Chicken Kebabs!

Tonights dinner: Baked Chicken Kebabs.

The great thing about this recipe is that it can be entirely customized with your favourite veggies, meats, or marinate some tofu and make it vegetarian!

The vegetables I chose:

White Mushrooms
Red Onion
Red Pepper
Yellow Pepper
Orange Pepper
Zucchini
Cauliflower

and for protein:

Chicken Breast

So simple...cut everything into bite size chunks...and skewer. I lightly olive oiled my veggies and chicken before I skewered them, and once skewered seasoned with salt and pepper! You can choose to make a marinade if you'd like, but I wanted the veggies to shine on their own!

Bake in the oven on the lowest shelf possible at 425.
After 10 minutes, flip!
Bake for 10 more minutes and you're done!

Serve over some jasmine rice, and with a delicious salad with balsamic and olive oil! I served the kebabs with some hot sauce, for dipping!