Put the Lime in the Coconut...

With the chicken all defrosted it was time for that Coconut Lime Chicken and Snow Pea Salad I mentioned yesterday! I found the recipe on Eating Well and, as usual, made a few modifications.

I used about 1/3 cup lime juice because I love lime juice. Plus, the thought of having a salad dressed in coconut milk kinda weirded me out. I also added about 1/4 tsp of that Chili Garlic Sauce we all know I love for a little heat. In an effort to save money, I used the chicken breasts stashed in our freezer instead of buying the tenderloins. I cut them up into bite sized pieces before baking them because I read the recipe wrong. oops! Here they are sitting in the delicious bath:
Okay, not exactly an exciting picture, but whatever. They were moist and delicious bits-o-chicken.

For the green part of the salad, I used shallot instead of red onion because someone (ahem, Jamie) doesn't like red onion. I sliced it and I think next time I'll mince it - o wait, that's what the recipe says. oops numero dos! Another thing I'd change next time around: blanch the snap peas.

Dinner time:
I thought it was pretty good aside from the chunks of shallot. There were also enough chicken chunks to throw over rice for lunch or maybe another serving of this salad.

I just realized most of my meals are photographed in bowls. Is that weird? Do you prefer eating in bowls or on plates?

As you might have noticed, I'm on day 2 of sampling recipes from Eating Well. I rarely follow recipes all the way through...there's always a modification of some sort on my part. We're trying to cut down on spending so I googled something like 'cheap recipes' or 'budget meals' the other day and saw a link to Eating Well's Healthy Budget Friendly Recipe Page. There were a ton of tasty looking recipes that used a lot of the ingredients I always have handy in the kitchen. I have one more recipe to test out this week - Lime-Honey Glazed Chicken with Mexican Rice and Arugula Salad. Notice some common ingredients in this week's meal?? :)

This is just one more step in making me less of an impulse shopper at the grocery store (I'm notorious for grabbing random items that look like fun). Last year (or maybe even earlier than that), we started planning weekly dinner menus and we've been fairly good at sticking to them. It's amazing how much our grocery bills have changed (and how little food we waste)!

Off I go to watch another episode of Spain: On The Road Again. Jamie put this on his Netflix queue after his uncle mentioned the show to him a couple months ago. It's a 13 part PBS special series featuring Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Claudia Bassols and Gwyneth Paltrow as they eat and roadtrip through Spain. I've only seen 2 episodes, but I think it's great so far. I was kinda shocked when Gwyneth opened her mouth - I had no idea she spoke Spanish so perfectly! They're all really laid back in this series and explore some really fun sights and food locations...they also ingest a fair share of wine ;) It makes me want to go back to Spain!! I definitely recommend checking the series out!