Day 19 of the Whole30: Green Curry and Naps

It is 7:25 pm, and I survived Day 19 of the Whole30 Challenge.

Today I made Oldie's Green Curry.  It was great.  I had two bowl fulls!  I included the recipe below with all the modifications and such for the Whole30. 

So, for the next several days, I have green curry, meatballs and tomato sauce, one more meal of shawarma, a cooked steak (probably great for two breakfasts with eggs), some roasted sweet potatoes (mainly for post-swim meals), zucchini to spiralize, and roasted cauliflower. I have a big bag of broccoli crowns to steam, which is fairly simple to accomplish, and I can use that for breakfast vegetables and supplemental vegetables for the other meals.  I feel pretty set through Wednesday to cover the 3 meals per day.  I also have some berries, a few apples, and a mini-watermelon that I already cut up.  I eat the watermelon sparingly and share a lot of it with the dogs because they LOVE watermelon.

In the middle of the day today, I took the first nap I've taken in a looooooong time.  I used to take naps all the time, but I've been so busy or traveling or doing whatever I have been doing for weeks and weeks and weeks.  Today, the dogs and I hit the hay for a really great early afternoon snooze.  I feel pretty refreshed and ready to face the week.  I think I had been a little behind on my sleep for the past few weeks, too.  Hopefully the nap pays off my sleep debt. Three cheers for naps! Hip hip hoorraayyyyy!

Oldie’s Green Curry

1 pound of carrots (about 6), peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick

2 onions minced

2 fresh Thai or jalapeno chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced

6 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons minced or grated fresh ginger

3 tablespoons of olive oil, coconut oil, or ghee.

2 cups low-sodium chicken broth, plus extra as needed. (double check the broth ingredients. Some add sugar or MSG or other non-compliant ingredients)

1 stalk lemon grass, bottom 5 inches only, bruised (I couldn’t find fresh lemon grass.  The pre-chopped processed lemon grass in the fresh spice section of the store had canola oil and whey, which aren’t complaint.  In a normal recipe, that would work, but not a Whole30.  I used dried lemon grass tied into a little cheese cloth pouch and removed it before adding coconut milk.  Some people say you can also use grated lemon zest.)

3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts, trimmed of fat and mystery bits

1 14 ounce can coconut milk

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon of fish sauce or approximately 6 canned anchovy filets (I used the anchovy filets because every fish sauce I encountered added sugar.  The other ingredients are water, anchovies, and salt.  Since anchovies disintegrate when cooking, that’s what I used)

1 tablespoon Thai green curry paste.  I used Thai Kitchen brand.

2-3 tablespoons of sweet potato puree, optional. (I added this because I had roasted sweet potato in the fridge, and the original recipe called for brown sugar and a thickener.  Since neither of those were compliant, I thought the sweet potato would do double duty and sweeten just a bit while thickening).

8 ounces of snow peas or snap peas or green beans (I used snap peas because they have more umph than a snow pea).

¼ cup minced fresh cilantro or basil

Lime wedges for serving

Directions:

1. Coat your trimmed chicken with olive oil (or coconut oil), salt, and pepper. Roast in the over at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

2. While the chicken is cooking, dice your carrots, onions, chiles, garlic and ginger. Saute in a big dutch over or pot on the stove until soft, maybe about 10 minutes.  I ADD THE ANCHOVIES HERE to make sure they broke down and melted into the vegetables.

3. Add chicken broth and the lemon grass to the pot.  Cook until hot all the way through.  I used medium heat.

4. At this point, your chicken should be ready.  Set it aside and let it cool a bit. 

5. In a separate smaller pot, steam your snap peas or whichever green vegetable you are using, just to get it a little par-cooked, not soggy.

5. Pull apart your roasted chicken into shredded bits and add to the big pot. 

6. Take out the lemon grass.

7. Add coconut milk, lime juice, curry paste, and the sweet potato if you’re using it. 

8. Add your steamed snap peas, stir it up and let everything get all warm and happy together. 

You can add more broth if it’s too thick for you, but because I didn’t use the tapioca thickener that had been recommended in the original recipe, the broth was still rather thin. 

9. Serve with fresh cilantro and lime juice. 

Notes:  You could probably cook the chicken in the dutch over with with carrots/onions.  Then you would take it out, shred it, and add it back in with the rest of the stuff.  I felt like a saved a little time since I cooked the chicken while prepping the other stuff, and it had a nice roasted taste, too. 

I think this could be pretty good with some yellow or orange bell pepper, maybe.  When I make it again, I might experiment with that addition. They would probably have to go in near the end, maybe steamed like the snow peas/green beans/snap peas. 

For the fat when sauteing the carrots, onions, etc... and the fat on the chicken for roasting, I will probably use coconut oil the next time.  I used olive oil this time, but maybe the coconut oil will taste more coconutty.