Chicken & Mango Curry

This weekend was a lovely blend of sloth-dom (Saturday) and chaos (Sunday), and as usual, was over entirely too soon. The lack of balance to my weekend was entirely my own fault. Because I am a compulsive list-maker (I make a to-do list nearly every week), I had my list of chores that I absolutely HAVE to get finished this week. I crossed two items off. Ahem.

One thing I did accomplish (which was not on my list) was that I cooked a lot. I try to do a lot of my cooking on the weekends, when I have both time and motivation, because it's really hard to drum up enthusiasm to prepare a meal from scratch after a full day at work and any after hours activities, like rehearsals, running errands, or physical therapy appointments. I imagine I might be driven to cook more if it were more than just me, but cooking for one often just seems like too much effort for the outcome.

I had pulled out a package of chicken thighs to make Julie from Table for Two's Holy Yum Chicken (which is absolutely amazing and you should make immediately!), but wasn't sure that I had enough maple syrup for the recipe. As I often do when I'm feeling inventive, I started digging through the freezer to see what I could scrounge up to use with the chicken thighs (even though it probably would have been easier to drive the 1 minute to the grocery store to buy more maple syrup). I found a bag of stir-fry peppers and onions, and a bunch of mango that I had bought fresh and then cut up and froze. Since I've also been trying to use up the miscellaneous items in my freezer, I figured I could come up with something from that.

Wow.

My kitchen creations are kind of hit-and-miss. While nothing is ever bad or inedible, sometimes it's simply uninspired. This was not one of those creations.

The end result was both beautiful and tasty, and really revved me up for the rest of the weekend (a good thing, since I decided to audition for a show kind of at the last minute, picked my audition song at the last minute, and then CHANGED my audition song while sitting in the theater waiting for my turn to sing!). Of course, two days later, my entire house still smells like curry, even though I tried supplanting it by baking a Crustless Coconut Pie last night (to be covered in a future post). But I can live with the smell of Eastern spices in the house if it means making this curry again!

And one of these days, I promise to invest in a real camera and take better quality pictures than what I'm currently capable of using only my cell phone's camera!

Chicken & Mango Curry

• 1 to 1 1/2 lbs chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized chunks
• 2 Tbsp cooking oil
• 1 16oz bag of pepper stir fry vegetables (or 1 small onion, 1/2 green pepper, 1/2 red pepper, sliced)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 c milk
• 2 Tbsp curry powder
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 2 cups mango, cubed

In a large skillet, heat oil. Add chicken; cook until no pink shows. Remove chicken from pan, leaving oil.

Add vegetables and garlic to the skillet; stir fry until crisp-tender, or they reach the desired consistency (about 2 minutes). Add vinegar, milk, curry, ginger, and cumin, stir until thoroughly blended. Add cornstarch, stirring in one teaspoon at a time. Simmer over medium heat until sauce thickens.

Add chicken and mango to the sauce; stir until thoroughly coated. Simmer over medium heat for 5-8 minutes.

Serve over rice.

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