Slow Cooker Coconut Ginger Chicken & Vegetables

I haven't been posting on this page for a while. I had some things happen.  My dad passed away in January and my son has been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.  I always have a hard time pleasing my son's palate which is why I first started this website. It didn't turn out the way I had hoped it would but at least I have the recipes recorded that he enjoys. I am also on a bit of a coconut kick lately because I read that it can help soothe the symptoms of UC.  I found this one recipe that the boy actually likes or at least he says he likes it. This dish is to be served over jasmine rice or brown rice. Another option would be to serve it over quinoa.  The original recipe comes from Simple Bites.net.

Slow Cooker Coconut Ginger Chicken & Vegetables

Ingredients:

4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 inch cube of ginger (about 30 grams), roughly chopped
1 small sweet onion, peeled, quartered (I used a Vidalia)
1 Tablespoon olive oil (or coconut oil)
2 Tablespoons butter
2.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into four (I used chicken breast)
2 cans coconut milk, not shaken
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 can of baby corn cobs
1 cup peas or frozen vegetables of your choice

For the spice blend:

1/2 teaspoons ground pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1-1/2 teaspoons ground tumeric
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1.  Combine ingredients from the spice blend together and set aside.

2.  In a mini food processor, combine garlic, ginger and onion.  Pulse until a paste is formed.

3.  In the bottom of a slow cooker placed on a burner (or a heavy bottomed pan),  heat olive oil and melt butter.  Add pureed aromatics, stir well.  Cook for a few minutes, then add spice blend. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.

4.  Move aromatics to one side of the pot and add chicken pieces to the pot. Cook chicken slightly on all sides, using a sturdy wooden spoon to move it around the pot. It should get thoroughly coated with the spice mixture.

5.  Open the cans of coconut milk and remove the cream from the top using a soup spoon. You should get about 1 cup. Pour the coconut milk over the chicken and with both cans, it should just barely cover the chicken.

6.  Drain the corn cobs and chop in half. Add to the slow cooker.

7.  Place the slow cooker in its base and cook on low for 4 hours.

8. Whisk cornstarch with coconut cream until smooth and add to the chicken. Stir well. Add frozen peas or other vegetables of your choice. Cook for another half an hour or until you deem the chicken cooked and the vegetables hot.

Enjoy!

The Creative Cook

Spitzbuben (Sandwich Cookies)

I made these cookies with my son this year as part of his Kulture Project for German I class. He is really enjoying German. It is a very logical language or so he tells me. We made a double batch of these because we had to send 2-1/2 dozen to school. They are really very pretty cookies and they are also quite tasty. In my opinion, the most difficult part was straining the jam.  Straining the jam was a pain in the neck and we lost quite a bit of jam because of the straining. Next time I will definitely purchase seedless raspberry jam and I may try putting the apricot jam into a food processor rather than trying to strain it. Of course, you can use other types of jam. I think the original German recipe calls for red currant jelly. Some recipes call for hazelnut and almond in the dough but I couldn't do that because my son is allergic to nuts. The original German recipe for these cookies requires adding rum and lemon juice but we couldn't add rum to the cookies we were sending to school.  Actually, his teacher said it was okay because it would be cooked out but I wasn't about to do that. We dusted the tops of our cookies with powdered sugar as you can see from the photo. I purchased a box of Linzer cookie cutters to make these whereas I read that other people have used a fluted cutter to make the cookie and a small Chrismas cutter to make the peek-a-boo for the jam to peek through.  I thought it would be cute but my son would not do it.  Next time...

SPITZBUBEN (Little Rascals) Sandwich Cookies

Gourmet | December 2000

Yield: Makes about 5 dozen

Active time: 1 hr

total Time: 2-1/2 hr

Ingredients:

For cookies:

·         3 cups all-purpose flour

·         1 1/4 cups confectioners sugar

·         1 tablespoon vanilla powder

·         3/4 teaspoon salt

·         2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, softened

·         2 teaspoons powdered egg whites

·         2 tablespoons warm water

·         1/4 cup sanding or granulated sugar

For fillings:

·         1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

·         1/2 cup apricot preserves, strained

Preparation:

Make cookies:

Sift together flour, confectioners sugar, vanilla powder, and salt.

Beat butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Mix in flour mixture at low speed just until blended. Form dough into a disk and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Roll out dough slightly less than 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface and cut out 1 1/2-inch rounds.

Arrange 1 inch apart on greased baking sheets. Reroll scraps once (cookies become tough if dough is worked too much). Whisk together powdered egg whites and water. Brush cookies with egg whites and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

Bake cookies in batches in middle of oven until pale golden, 10 to 15 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool.

Fill cookies:

Sandwich jam and preserves between unsugared sides of cookies, filling half with raspberry and half with apricot.