Chicken & Veggie Curry

This weekend was nice. Busy as usual, but relaxing at the same time. I love the weekends that feel longer than they actually are.

A drive to Portland with mom to exchange a few Christmas gifts, a stop by Crate & Barrel to drool over everything in sight and lunch with my brother and his wife was most of my Saturday.  

The weather around here has been in the 20s the past several days, but no snow. It's made running especially tough on the lungs. 

View on the drive to Portland

Saturday, I avoided running outside and did some spinning and strength work indoors. But Sunday, there was no avoiding it. I had my last long run before the Cascade Half Marathon next weekend. 

1 hr 33 min 33 sec run - just plain tiring

And then I finally busted into our new vacuum from the parents. Having a black lab means constantly finding black clumps of dog hair all over the house. Just a few days after vacuuming, you need to do it again. 

As our old vacuum was barely useable, we resorted to sweeping more and vacuuming less, which leaves junk on the rugs. Definitely not my favorite. Thankfully, we don't have to worry about that any longer.  

Vacuuming led the manfriend to organizing my little food shelf. Watch out, once the manfriend gets on a cleaning spree, no item gets left unturned. 

A few minutes later, we had a few tidy shelves.

And then we dined, while listening to some pretty impressive Golden Globe speeches. 

Chicken & Veggie Curry
Inspired by Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2011 cookbook
Original recipe: Fall vegetable curry

Ingredients:
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1 local, organic chicken breast *optional
1 yellow onion
1 green bell pepper
1 cup cauliflower
1 med. sweet potato
3 tsp curry powder *I used mild local, organic variety
salt & pepper
Uncle Ben's brown rice
Plain Greek yogurt

I've been wanting to use the crock pot and open my Cooking Light cookbook and actually make a recipe from it. This weekend was finally the time.

I sat down and flipped through the large book, bookmarking the pages with dishes that sounded good. Luckily, most of them are pretty easy to put together and affordable.

After a chilly long run, I chopped up the goods and threw everything into the crock pot. I cut the chicken breast in half to help it cook through. I also added about a cup of additional water so everything didn't dry out. I set the crock pot to cook on low for 5.5 hours.

When ready to eat, just boil some water and cook your rice! When dishing it up, add a dollop of Greek yogurt to each bowl. This is especially helpful if you're doing a spicy curry (helps to tame the heat), but it also goes well with a mild curry flavor.

Not only is this a tasty and healthy dish, it's great for leftovers the next day. Here's to hoping this inspires me to prep other meals this month to sit and simmer all day.