Sweet Potato Chicken Curry

I got this recipe from Audrey Carlson at the women's health blog I participate in, called Healthy Wife Happy Life. Her recipe is called Crock Pot Chicken Curry -

CROCK POT CHICKEN CURRY
4 boneless chicken breast
1 small onion, chopped
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2/3 c. orange juice
1 minced garlic clove (I used 2)
1 tsp. chicken bullion granules
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
4 tsp. curry powder


4 TBLS cornstarch
2 TBLS cold water

Place chicken in slow cooker and cover with onions and sweet potatoes. Combine OJ, garlic, chicken bullion, salt, pepper, and curry powder. Pour over veggies. Cover and cook on low 5-6 hours.

Remove chicken and veggies and keep warm. Turn cooker to high and add corn starch dissolved in cold water. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Serve chicken and veggies over brown rice and pour "gravy" over the top.

Toppings
sliced green onions
shredded coconut
chopped peanuts
white raisins

NOTE: if you don't have a lot of juice left in the bottom cut the corn starch mixture in half.

Changes I made
Frankly, when I cooked it I was in a hurry because I didn't get my act together in time to get it in the crock pot. So, I stir-fried the chicken, nuked the cubes of sweet potatoes, sauteed the onions, then added the rest of the ingredients to a jumbo skillet. So delicious!! Here are the portions I used when cooking it and inputing the recipe into MFD's Recipe Builder:
16 oz. cooked chicken breast (about 2-1/2 to 3 breasts)
about 2-1/2 large sweet potatoes, peeled & cubed, probably 4 to 5 cups
1 large onion, chopped (about 1/2" pieces)
1 cup orange juice
3 tsp. minced garlic (the kind in the jar)
1 tsp. chicken base (a thick paste you buy in a jar)
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
5 tsp. curry powder (increase this to 9 tsp. or 3 Tbsp. to make it really spicy)

This yielded 10 cups, 5 pounds for 1 cup/8oz. serving

Calories - 142, Fat - 0.8g, Carbs 19.2g, Protein 14.g per 1 cup serving. Awesome!! I ate mine served over rice

White Chocolate Chip Cookies

White Chocolate Chip Cookies - a Becky original

1 cup or 2 sticks butter
1-1/2 cups white sugar
3 egg whites or 2 eggs (calories below reflect the egg whites)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1-3/4 cups white flour
1 bag or about 11 oz. white baking chips

Calories - 116 calories per 1 oz. serving

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, vanilla, soda and salt & mix. Add the cocoa and the flour. Mix. Add the white chips and stir. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes for melon-ball size cookie dough, longer for larger balls of dough.

**Note - This is a high altitude recipe (I'm at 6700 feet), so if you are at a low altitude, you should probably reduce the flour to 1-1/2 or even 1-1/3 cups.

How I Figure Out the Calories Etc.

NorPro measuring cups and spoons

How do I come up with my calories and nutrient info? First off, I use a site called www.myfooddiary.com for all my weight-loss calorie-counting and food journaling.

I hate Livestrong's The Daily Plate. I'm sure there are people who love it because it's free, to each their own. But My Food Diary is so much more straightforward and easy to use. Anyway, I can input ingredients into the Recipe Builder, and tell it how many servings there are per recipe, and then it gives me the calories and nutrient info. So awesome! It's totally worth the $9/month price tag. So, that's what I use to get all the hard data.

Now, how do I measure food to input it into the Recipe Builder? Well, the obvious is to use a variety of measuring cups to measure volume. But to really get specific, I use digital scales. Yep, my digital scales are kind of crusty and beat-up. But that tells you how much they get used! At least half-a-dozen times a day, and often much more:


It's great to measure portions of pre-packaged food, not just raw ingredients.

I measure my food almost always by weight. That way, when I want to eat just a smidgen of a naughty treat, I know how many calories I got for my 1oz. portion, not just the full recommended portion-size. It's very handy when "dieting" or watching calories and portion sizes.

Here's my procedure for tabulating calories:
1. Weigh or measure all the ingredients, sometimes both, to calculate portion sizes and number of servings.
2. Add up all the calories for each amount of ingredient.
3. Divide the total calories by the amount of servings, sized either by volume or by weight. Wah-lah! Yes, I was good at math in school, not Einstein or anything, but I got A's. I'm just lucky that my brain is wired for it.

Today's cute kitchen gadgets -
Really cute measuring cups featured at www.thekitchn.com:






More at www.catchingfireflies.com:

They also have matching heart and flower measuring spoons. Great gift ideas for Valentine's or Mother's Day!