What was a shift for me was looking up recipes with no consideration given at all to the fat and calories. I started with this recipe for Coconut Shrimp and quite honestly I have never, in my life, cooked with coconut. FATT-E-NING amirite?  The primal eating style not only allows cooking with coconut, but recommends it. Yowza.

I would absolutely try this recipe as written (with shrimp, der) but we had a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the fridge that had to be eaten, so I tried it with chicken and it was great. Here are the non-meat ingredients, taken from the page linked above:

• 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 – 1 cup organic virgin coconut oil for frying

(Coconut flakes AND coconut OIL OMG).

A couple of things:

• For two breasts (which I pounded out to flatten), I ended up with a little too much of the coconut/almond flour mixture.
• One egg would have been enough.
• I couldn’t find almond flour so I bought crushed (REALLY crushed) almonds. I’m not sure if there’s even a difference, but it worked just fine.
• I didn’t add the salt. I actually just forgot.
• There is no way, NO WAY, I used anywhere near a cup of the coconut oil. I purchased the oil for the first time yesterday and it came in a tub I found in the refrigerated section, so it was solid in the tub. I threw it in the pan about a teaspoon at a time and figure I used about three teaspoons.

The chicken browned up really quickly, but given that I never fry anything, I forgot that it would brown before it was fully cooked and the spinach was done and I was all “ACK NOW WHAT?” so I threw it in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes and it may have been a tad overdone, but it was still really (REALLY) good.

As a side dish, I wanted to make spinach. I LOVE SPINACH a whole lot and I had it in my head to try something gomae’ish, but warm. Believe it or not, I actually had tahini in the cupboard (I think I once had an illusion I would make homemade humous HAHAHA YA RIGHT that happened).

I found this recipe for Spinach with Tahini – doesn’t get much easier than that. And yet I overcooked it when I misjudged the time it would take to fry+bake the chicken. That is your first warning about the picture I’m about to post. The second is that it’s just a shitty picture.

I told Andrew that I wanted to take a picture of our dinner, but he was starving, dinner was late, I am not yet a “quick on my feet” photographer and the lightening in the kitchen is horrible for photography (“photo-graph-ee”) apparently, so long story short, the photo sucks.

But, here it is: Coconut Chicken with Sesame Spinach (pretend the spinach is in focus, please).

I’ve just realized this theme doesn’t work super well with photos – it re-sizes them in a weird way, so I have to make them quite small. Time for a new theme, perhaps…

I did try to lighten it up (a BIT) by using light coconut milk and browning the chicken in cooking spray and just a few drops of sesame oil (which is so potent anyway, not to mention there are a ton of other flavours in this recipe).

HOWEVER. I can’t say I was thrilled with how this turned out, honestly. I doubt I’d make this recipe (as written) again. So why then, you may ask, am I saving it? Well, we loved the flavours but the flavour…delivery was a bit – no, A LOT, off for us.

I like chicken skin to be crispy not…soggy. Our chicken skin was SOGGY and very SKIN-like and skeeved us out, and we are not picky food people in the slightest. We peeled the skin off as we ate (which, not a bad thing, sure) but it was just kind of a gross out.

And I did brown the chicken first, I did! I was tempted to skip that step because, honestly – WHAT a PAIN. But I did it and the skin was lovely and brown to start but the coconut milk hot tub destroyed any browning results on the thighs, drumsticks and wings. SOGG-AY.

I would, though, like to try the recipe with skinless breasts (boneless or…uh…boned), perhaps even in the slow cooker. Normally I’m a thigh girl but this sauce is so rich I’m thinking breast would be best.

Here’s the original recipe from thekitchn.com.  Changes noted:

• One 3-3.5 pound whole chicken
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• · 4 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons A few sprinkles of sesame oil
• 1 pound fingerling potatoes
• 2 cans (13 – 15oz) regular or light coconut milk
• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• 10 whole garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
• Zest of 2 lemons
• 2 tablespoons chopped lemon grass stems
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 chopped Thai chili (I added this to the recipe myself)

• S&P the chicken according to taste.
• Heat the cooking spray and sesame oil in a frying pan and brown the chicken on all sides (just a few minutes per side).
• Put the chicken in an oven safe dish and add the rest of the ingredients.
• Baste every 20 minutes or so, for an hour to an hour and a half.

Next time I’ll try:

• Combine all ingredients, except the chicken
• Put a bit of the sauce mixture in a slow cooker or oven-safe dish
• Add skinless chicken (cut in pieces)
• Pour the rest of the sauce over the chicken
• Bake in the oven at 375 for about an hour, OR
• Slow cook on low for about 7 hours or high for about 4

I’ll try to remember to post an update if/when I remake this.

• Spring mix salad
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about one per person)
• Cajun seasoning
• Feta cheese to taste
• Approximately one cup cooked (and cooled) corn
• Approximately one cup chopped dates (do yourself a favor and make sure you buy the pitted ones)*
• A couple of handfuls of crunchy-munchy bits (as Andrew calls them, aka chow mein noodles – quite often found in the produce section, near the croutons, otherwise, try the Asian or International section)**

Sprinkle the chicken breasts with Cajun seasoning and throw on the BBQ.

The salad at Cactus is served with a Honey Lime Vinaigrette.  I have yet to make a reasonable facsimile from scratch, but I’ll keep trying.  Lately I have been wimping out and buying a Key Lime Vinaigrette from IGA and adding the juice of one fresh lime, and a squirt of honey. Mix with braun, etc.

I assemble the salad by dumping everything on the plate except the chicken and crunchy-munchy bits, which I add after I’ve added the dressing (I prefer not to drown out the flavor of the Cajun seasoning and the crunchy-munchies can get soggy).

This is a real stand-bye for us.  One meal doesn’t use up all of the feta, corn, dates or noodles so we often have these ingredients at home, which means I just have to pick up some lime, chicken and salad on the way home.  There’s really very little prep to do, so it all comes together really quickly and is really yummy.

*We bought some “real”, “fresh”, “a uthentic”, blah blah dates at an Iranian store one day and they were awful – mushy and too sticky. The ones found in the grocery store are better for this salad.

**We always laugh at the “International” section. When does a food qualify to move from the “International” sectio to the regular aisles? They have Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Thai and Japanese food (among others) in the International section at IGA, yet pasta and pasta sauces are in the regular section.  Italian isn’t International, but
Mexican is? I personally believe Mexico should be up for a promotion to the regular section, as I’ve been eating it for as long as I can remember.  Asian foods may not have been on the North American radar quite as long, so I think they need to put a little more time in the International section before they can be promoted.  Also I think too
much.