Slow Cooker Butter Chicken Recipe

 I am constantly forgetting about the existence of Indian food. I love it, but I guess since there aren't any Indian restaurants in my neighborhood, it's easy to forget. 

And keep in mind - butter chicken isn't even in my top three things that I like to order. But this butter chicken? Get the hell out of here.

I know I won't shut up about you getting a slow cooker, I'm sorry. But whether you cook a lot (oh man, you need one in that case) or you never really cook at all (ugh, you especially need to get one because it'll make you want to cook all the time) - this is one of the best chicken recipes I've ever had.

Easy Healthier Crockpot Butter Chicken

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 5 hours

Total Time: 5 hours

Serving Size: 4

Ingredients

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite size chunks
1/2 onion, finely minced
2 tablespoons butter (butter is totally optional, I opt to use none since I really don't think it makes a difference, taste-wise)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons curry paste
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
1/2 cup fat-free greek yogurt
1/4 cup half and half
cooked white/brown rice, for serving (I used brown rice 'cause it makes me feel better about my choices.)
Fresh homemade Naan, for scooping (homemade? I don't think so. I bought whole wheat pizza crust instead.)
 
Instructions

"In a large glass measuring cup or bowl mix together the coconut milk, greek yogurt and cream. Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, ginger and all the spices. Mix well.
Spray the inside of your crockpot bowl with cooking spray or grease with olive oil. To the bowl sprinkle the onion over the bottom. Add the chicken and then pour the coconut milk mixture over the chicken so the chicken is completely covered. Add the butter and place the lid on the crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6 to 8 hours. I like to stir mine once or twice during cooking, but it is not necessary. When ready to serve taste and season with salt and pepper if desired. Serve over rice with a big piece of fresh Naan."

Original recipe found at Half Baked Harvest.

New Year's Day Recipes

You'll understand in a few days why I'm posting these recipes with these specific ingredients, but for now all I can tell you is that these would be extremely lucky recipes to make on January 1st. (And if you hate the following recipes? Try to eat something with these main ingredients then - if you know what's good for you.)

You can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.

Crockpot Pulled Pork Chili - recipe from How Sweet Eats

Crockpot Brown Sugar Balsamic Glazed Pork Tenderloin

Cider-Dijon Pork Chops - recipe from Epicurious

Lentil Tacos - recipe from AllRecipes

Lentil Bolognese

Pork and Black Eyed Pea Chili - recipe from Gourmandistan

Three Bean Salad - recipe from eNourishment

Pesto Lasagna with Spinach and Mushrooms

Spinach, Bacon and Artichoke Stuffed Mushrooms - recipe from How Sweet Eats

Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread Muffins - recipe from Or Whatever You Do

Nutella-Stuffed Brown Butter + Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies

Want to know what's up? These cookies. THESE CHRISTMAS COOKIES. What makes them Christmas cookies? The fact that THEY GETTIN' MADE ON CHRISTMAS. And also, they are gluttonous as hell.

I have never made cookies from scratch before and these were my first attempt. And they're sort of ridiculous-tasting, I think - ie. amazing. MAKETHEMNOW.

Recipe from Ambitious Kitchen here. 

Bob's Burgers Made Into REAL Burgers

I'm going to assume that you already watch Bob's Burgers. And if you haven't? Well, I'll speak to you privately later. Everyone should be watching this show.

Anyway, in every episode there's a different burger-of-the-day that's featured in the background of the restaurant on a chalkboard (see above photos). And I just found out that there's some magical human being out there WHO'S ACTUALLY MAKING THESE BURGERS! I love it when people do stuff like this. Ya know, fun stuff. Just such a neat idea. You can see for yourself over at The Bob's Burgers Experiment. I've included a few examples of what they've done below.

The Cauliflower’s Cumin From Inside The House Burger (comes with cauliflower and cumin)

Angus beef patty topped with jalapeno cheese, tomato, lettuce, onion and of course - the triple C combo: a mash of cauliflower, cumin and cilantro.

The Bruschetta-bout it Burger

An angus beef patty topped with bruschetta and mozzarella cheese, dressed lightly with balsamic vinegar on toasted french bread. Comes with a light salad.

Pickle My Funny Bone Burger

All beef patty topped with fried pickles (delicious dill coated in an italian herb and red pepper batter) and a deliciously creamy mayo-ketchup-hot sauce combo.  Served with a pickled beet salad.

SUCH a good idea for a blog. Can't wait to see what other ones they make. 

Chef John's Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip

I yearn to be a great cook. I like to think that I try my best, but I'm just not that great at it. But this dip? I can make this flawlessly and people actually eat it with a smile - so this will be one of my great go-to things to make for the rest of my days. I know I've mentioned it once quickly before in another post, but I wanted to put up the video for it as well. Also, do you know how much I love this man - Chef John? A lot. (I've mentioned my love for him in the past.) He's just the best and his recipes are almost always amazing. Anyway, you can watch the video for the recipe or go on over here for a print out. Tasty as hell. 

Juice of the Day - Perfect Pineapple

This is a juice I just made. I got the recipe from The Big Book of Juices. It consists of one half of a full, hugeass pineapple and three kiwis. How the hell do you cut a kiwi so that the insides stay put but that brown skin fucks off? NO IDEA. What I got left over after attempting to de-skin that kiwi was almost laughably tiny. Nevertheless. THIS DRINK IS DELICIOUS. And when you taste it for the first time, you think, "Ohhhhhh. THIS is what pineapple is supposed to taste like," in a really positive way. Most pineapple juices have ludicrous amounts of sugar and all kinds of garbage in it to preserve it, so this was refreshing as ever. DRINK. (Also, the recipe from the book tells you to put eight tablespoons of pineapple juice in it as well - and that sounded dumb to me, so I omitted it.)

If you're looking for more juice recipes, I have only obtained one other great one so far, but give me some time. You'll get more.  

Juice of the Day - Creamy Pear

Why is this glass half empty? 'CAUSE I DRANK HALF OF IT IN IMPATIENCE before I found my camera.  

I just tried this juice for the first time today and you need to make it yourself. It's fucking unreal and delicious.  

Creamy Pear Recipe

• 3 pears
• 4 watermelon slices
• Handful of mint (if you want mint for free, I will mail you some. It's growing all up on the garden in my yard. Makes the air smell minty as fuck. Too minty.)

I got the recipe from The Big Book of Juices - and it's an especially good juice book 'cause the recipes usually have 1 - 4 ingredients per recipe (not like other, lesser books that have a million ingredients per recipe and contain such ingredients that are usually a billion dollars at the grocery store). They also have photos alongside most of the juices, which, of course, I enjoy. I did add more watermelon to this recipe since, well, using more watermelon gives you hella juice and I was thirsty. 

This is also the first pear juice I've tried and if you've somehow got no Peardrax around your house - then, pal, this is the juice for you.  

(Sidenote: Almost every single time I'm juicing, for at least a moment, I think of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets really buff by eating Powersauce bars. With every apple that goes into my juicer I think about "unleashing the awesome power of apples." Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything. Go juice.)

Phenomenal, Low-Fat Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 7 ripe medium bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 2-1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour (I used whole wheat flour, though)
• 1-1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 oz (3/4 cup) chopped walnuts
• baking spray

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease two 8x5 inch loaf pans with baking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt with a wire whisk. Set aside.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add egg whites, bananas, apple sauce and vanilla, and beat at medium speed until thick. Scrape down sides of the bowl.

Add flour mixture and walnuts, then blend at low speed until combined. Do not over mix.

Pour batter into loaf pans and bake on the center rack for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the pan cool at least 20 minutes, bread should be room temperature before slicing.

Recipe taken from Skinny Taste. 

I just made this for the first time and good God... it's a great one. Definitely will be my go-to one from now on. It also calls for an electric mixer, but I didn't have one so I used a vigorous motion with my hands. I did one loaf with 1/3 cup of walnuts and the other with 1/3 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Just delicious. 

Side Dish of Corn

You might think this is a dumb post, but I just ate this stuff and I'll never cook corn the same way from now on.  

I love corn. My mom would always boil it, strain it and then put some butter on it and voila. Beautiful. But I just ate/made some corn that blows that old corn out of the water (haha!). 

What should you do? 

Okay. You need some organic corn-on-the-cob, garlic cloves, olive oil, kosher salt and ground black pepper. If you use one ear of corn, then chop one clove of garlic and pour 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. (If you use two ears of corn then use two cloves and 3 tablespoons of olive oil - you get the picture.) 

Stand the corn-on-the-cob upright in the frying pan and use a sharp knife to cut the kernels from the cob (it's easy to do this right in the pan 'cause if you do it on a cutting board the kernels go flying everywhere. I mean everywhere.) into the pan. Add the chopped garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Cook it up. Takes maybe three-four minutes. And you will have the best tasting corn of your damn life. I could eat buckets of this stuff. And the beautiful part? Doesn't need any butter! I know! But butter's great! However you truly don't need a smidgen of it here.  

Singular Cupcakes

Do you ever crave just one cupcake? Of course you do, you maniac! And this site can give you the ingredients for 1-2 servings. My personal favourite is for the carrot cake one found here. 

I can't tell you the amount of times I'll just make a batch of 12 or 24 only because I want one or two. And what do I do with the rest? Force feed them to loved ones. But who needs that? Everyone resents you later. Anyhow, just an idea. God speed.