We love to fill our house with the smell of....

Curry!
This curry, paired with our homemade naan, is without a doubt my favorite meal.  The way that the aromatic Indian spices mixes with the flavorful fresh cilantro and ginger is amazing!  It is also one of our favorite dishes to serve whenever having people over for dinner. We have yet to meet anyone that doesn't love it!!
We found the base for this recipe on Allrecipes.com, but then changed a lot of it after making it so many times.

We usually serve it with basmati rice, naan, and mango lassi.  Stay tuned for the naan recipe!
Just a few things:

• It is easy to adjust the heat of this recipe--we sometimes throw in a diced cayenne pepper, or you can use more/less of the ground cayenne pepper.  We've even found 'hot madras' curry powder that we use instead of the regular curry powder.
• Most of these spices can be found in your local grocery store, or at a 'healthy' supermarket.  We found tandoori masala at Publix and used it in place of garam masala.  Or these spices can easily be bought online.

Chicken Curry

Ingredients
2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger root
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 tablespoon water
1 (15 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 (32oz) tub of plain yogurt
I bunch of chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Cut the chicken into cubes and then partially cook it in the hot oil until lightly browned.  Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside.
2. Add the chopped onion, garlic, and ginger to the oil remaining in the skillet and cook until the onion turns translucent, about 6-8 minutes.  Add the curry powder, cumin, turmeric, coriander, cayenne, garam masala, and 1 tbsp of water.  Stir together for 1 minute.
3. Stir in the tomatoes, yogurt, cilantro and 1 tsp of salt.  Return the chicken breast to the skillet along with any juices on the plate. 
4. Bring the mixture to a boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes (or however long depending on the consistency you are looking for).

Serves 4-5 people.

We included a cayenne pepper from our garden to spice things up!

browned chicken

Obsessed with the smell of this combination of spices!

simmering

deeeeeeeeeeelicious!! 

The day that you are a shrimp boat captain, I will come and be your first mate.

Do you know who said that?  Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump, of course!
Ben and I went to the Lt. Dan band concert last night.  What is really neat about the band is that they most often play for charities/benefits to raise money to support wounded veterans, and they often go on USO tours all over the world to visit our service men/women.  Another cool thing about Gary Sinise is that he was born in Blue Island, IL and started the band in Chicago.  Awesome!
The band is a cover band and has such a wide variety of talent, so they were able to play through many different genres and eras! It was so fun!! They also did such a wonderful job of honoring our servicemembers, especially those injured.
And for those of you who didn't know, most of Forrest Gump was filmed in Beaufort--so Gary Sinise said he's extremely proud that he was able to film a movie in a town that has such a great support and love for the military.
We even got to spend a few minutes in Gary Sinise's trailer thanking him for raising so much money for our troops, and he thanked Ben for his service.

This was painted in minutes on stage and then sold to a bidder in the audience for $20,000 and then another one for $15,000 for the Independence Fund (an organization for wounded veterans).

Ben was so excited he could barely keep his eyes open.

Easy healthy snack for the weekend

These quinoa guacamole tacos, inspired by fooddbabe.com, are delicious, easy, and healthy. 
 
Take some of that leftover guacamole,  make quinoa according to the package's instructions, and spoon it onto a Romaine leaf.  We usually have leftover quinoa and guacamole sitting in the fridge, so this is the perfect snack (or light lunch) to whip up during a busy day!
Try it this weekend!