Light Chicken Biryani & My Garden

Pretty much everyone at my house could stand to lighten up a bit.

I don't mind eating light. But I refuse to skimp on flavor!

While looking for flavorful, light recipes containing chicken breast, I stumbled across this recipe from Cooking Light. It's BURSTING with flavor! I couldn't wait to try it! I tweaked it a bit and came up with this.



Light Chicken Biryani
1 1/2 C jasmine rice, uncooked
2 1/4 C water
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp saffron, crushed
1 cinnamon stick
1 1/2 pounds skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
1 tsp salt (yup another one...)
1 TBLS olive oil
1 1/2 C onion, diced
4 tsp hot curry powder
1 tsp cardamom
1 1/2 tsp ginger root, grated
3 garlic cloves, grated
3 serrano chiles, seeded and minced
2 C plain yogurt (do not use non-fat)
1 C golden seedless raisins
1 C dry-roasted cashews, chopped
1/2 C fresh cilantro

In a rice cooker, combine jasmine rice, water, 1 tsp salt, saffron and cinnamon stick. Cook according to rice cooker directions.

Season chicken with 1/2 tsp salt and saute in olive oil. When lightly browned, remove from pan and keep warm.

Add onion, 1/2 tsp salt, hot curry powder, cardamom, ginger, garlic and serranos to pan and saute until tender.

Add yogurt and whisk until well combined. Add chicken and raisins. Cook until heated through.

Remove cinnamon stick from rice and discard. Stir rice into chicken mixture until well combined.

Sprinkle with cashews and cilantro.

Makes 8 hearty satisfying 1 cup servings.

Enjoy!

Per Serving:
Calories:447.1
Fat: 11.9g
Carbohydrates: 58.3g
Protein: 28.4g

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In a rice cooker, combine jasmine rice, water, 1 tsp salt, saffron and cinnamon stick. Cook according to rice cooker directions.


Season chicken with 1/2 tsp salt and saute in olive oil.
When lightly browned, remove from pan and keep warm.


Add onion, 1/2 tsp salt, hot curry powder, cardamom, ginger, garlic and serranos to pan and saute until tender.


Stand back! The fumes of the chiles are very strong!


Add yogurt and whisk until well combined.


If you look closely you can see that my yogurt broke down.


I used low-fat yogurt. And the dish tasted fine.

But next time, I think I'll use full fat yogurt.
It should be creamy with full fat... and there aren't a ton of calories in yogurt, so this would still totally be a low fat dinner.

Definitely don't use NON fat yogurt.

Ok... back to cooking!

Add the chicken & raisins to the sauce.




Remove the cinnamon stick from your rice.
(the rice smelled amazing while it was cooking!!)


Stir the rice into the pan with the chicken.

I didn't use a big enough skillet, so I had to move everything to a pot.


Garnish with chopped cashews & cilantro leaves and enjoy!!




Now I've never tasted Chicken Biryani, so I don't know how this stands up to the full fat, baked, made with ghee version.

But it was really good and I will be making it again.

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And for a garden update!

Just for a refresher...

Here's the previous picture of my Grape Tomato Plants.


This is them this morning.


They've been moved to their summer home (against my house, instead of the back wall)

Oh yeah...

My snack bar is getting ready to open!


Very few Grape Tomatoes actually make it into the house.

I just eat them every time I walk by!

Along the back wall, I had originally intended to just put pots of something cheap and green. Well... green stuff isn't necessarily cheap.

I ended up putting alternating pots of Celosia and Petaluna.


I'm not super thrilled with it. Maybe once they start blooming I'll like it better.
I'll just have to wait and see.

To the left of the Celosia & Petaluna, I planted some seeds.
Mustard in the round one and Cilantro in the long one.


Back row is:
Grape Tomato, Poblano Chile, Jalapeno Chile, Habanero Chile, Thai Chile.

Front row is:
Dahlias, Begonias, Petunias, Celosia, Petunias

Two pots of Jasmine in the back.

In the front: Melampodium (Butter Daisy... I had to look up Melampodium), Begonias, Celosia & Petunias

My herb garden pic has a weird sun angle and is hard to see... I'll post a better pic next time.


Another funky sun pic... Caladium


I've never grown it, but when Jon pointed it out... I LOVED it!

Gerber Daisies


Little Yellow Roses (I've never grown these either)


Looking toward the door.


Looking toward the street.


We melted a hole in Lil Pete's pot!! He got too close to the grill! Oops!

Well... that's it for today!

Thanks for stopping by!!