Challenge

 Our writing word for a long time has been challenge. Well, I have been accepting the "take on a daily challenge" idea for a while now - maybe not everyday, but enough of them to throw out an ankle, a knee, an elbow and a shoulder - need I say more.  Since April, I have - 

1. Assembled 6 Ikea purchases - 2 narrow bookcases, 1 small chest of drawers, 1 desk and two head boards - oops the headboards were from Lowes.

2. Transplanted 4 rosebushes from the back of the house to the front - all have survived.

2a. Extended a soaker hose system to water the replanted rose bushes.

3. Put in 2 vegetable gardens - back and front.

4. Potted up 25 pots of various sizes with both flowers and vegetables. Did you know that Chives can look a lot like Dracaena, with some imagination - OK a lot of imagination.

5. Sanded and spray painted 12 wooden lawn ornaments - all black cats, which I designed years ago as part of an art project.

6. Installed a string of 24 outdoor lights to fancy up the deck. My apologies to the Lilac.

7. Got the bike rack on the car - with help and have had several short bike rides - well, it's been a year since I last rode.

8. Added dozens of indoor house plants to the few we had. All had to be re-potted several times, watered a lot and repositioned on a regular basis - not sure why.

I have tried to slow down with some needlework projects, but that required rummaging through boxes of old fabric, embroidery floss and other miscellany. Still I managed to -

1. Add 13 dome fasteners to 3 duvet covers to keep the duvets from falling out - just another 13 fasteners to go.

2. Repair one very worn duvet cover, which I just couldn't throw out.

3. Begin embroidery work on 2 tea towels that were screen printed, years ago, with a drawing of mine, plus a poem, that was not mine. Pictures to come.

Happy to report that two of my self-inflicted injuries have healed and the other two are on the mend. Now to tackle one remaining Ikea dresser and finish those knitting projects.

Have an awesome day!

Butter Chicken

 I promised a while back, actually a long while back, to give you my version of Butter Chicken from J's World Kitchen. I loved J's recipe for Naan so much that I decided to make his version of butter chicken. I did, however, take a look at a few other videos, just to see what was out there. Well, by far J's was the easiest. Some used fresh tomatoes - OK, when you have too many tomatoes in August, but this is June. J used a store bought tomato puree (as did a few others). He also did not add cashews - expensive and then you had to puree them, with the fresh tomatoes, using a hand held blender. No, this recipe is very easy. Please check out the link above for recipe amounts for two chicken breasts. I used just one chicken breast.

To start -

I chopped the chicken breast and marinated it in 

1 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Garam Masala (You can substitute Allspice.)
Cayenne and salt to taste

Then I prepared the following:

1 small onion chopped
1 tablespoon each of garlic paste and ginger paste

I created my own garlic paste and ginger paste in a small blender, using 2 garlic cloves and about 2 inches of fresh ginger, peeled, plus 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. J used store bought paste for both ginger & garlic, but I got the idea to make my own from Madhur Jaffray.

I sautéed the onion in a large skillet over medium heat. J uses vegetable oil, but I used butter. Either one works well. To the onion, I added the garlic and ginger paste, plus the following spices:

1 tsp Garam Masala
1 tsp Chilli Powder
1 tsp Cumin
1 Bay Leaf 
Salt to taste

I then added the chicken and fried (sautéed) everything for about 5 mins.

Next, I added 1/4 cup of yogurt. Well, I had to get creative here, because the yogurt had gone off. Fortunately, I did have sour cream. I substituted and it worked.

I also added 1 cup of cream and 1 cup of tomato paste (actually a whole tin of tomato paste - one of the small ones.) J also adds a can of tomato sauce, but I was doing just 1 chicken breast and the sauce, as it was, tasted great! I let it all simmer, while I boiled the rice.

Finally, I poured spoonfuls of the butter chicken over the cooked rice and enjoyed it all immensely.

Oh, yes and I did add some fresh Coriander from the garden and a large dollop of Major Grey chutney. It was at this point in my life, that I finally realized Major Grey chutney is not Mango chutney. Well, they all look the same in those small jars. I guess I didn't read the fine print - the story of my life.

Have an enjoyable day!