22
Oct

Tonight for dinner, we’re having this:

That, my friends, is one of my new favorite meals to cook and eat – curried chicken with apples and mango chutney. I love Indian food and this recipe tastes just like it came from a fancy Indian restaurant. The secret is the prepared mango chutney, which I’d never worked with or tasted before. It looks like orange marmalade, and tastes like a sweet mango jelly with chili powder mixed in to make it interesting. The chutney really adds some complex and amazing flavors to the dish.

Curried Chicken with Apples and Mango Chutney
Servings: 6
Weight Watchers Points: 7 per serving

Cooking spray
1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 2-inch chunks
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 Granny Smith apple, unpeeled, cored and chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp grated peeled fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tbsp curry powder
1/2 c. mango chutney
1/4 c. currants
1/3 c.fat-free chicken broth
1/4 c.  fat-free half-and-half
1 Tbsp chopped parsley
3 c. cooked brown rice

Heat the cooking spray in a large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat, then add the chicken and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until browned, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate.

Add the apple, onion, ginger and garlic to the skilled and reduce heat to medium. Cook until the apple and onion are tender, about 6 minutes. Stir in the curry powder and cook for 1 minute. Add the chicken, chutney, currants, broth, half-and-half and parsley and bring to a boil. Simmer, uncovered, until the flavors mingle and the sauce thickens slightly, about 3 minutes. Serve over rice.

NOTES: The original recipe called for white rice, and for slivered almonds to be sprinkled over the top. I much prefer the brown rice and think the dish is terrific without the extra calories and fat from the almonds. This is a seriously delicious dish, by the way. It’s also great a day or two later for lunch – the flavors just get better and better.

07
Oct

There were some dirty plates
and a glass of milk
beside her on a small table
near the rank, disheveled bed—

Wrinkled and nearly blind
she lay and snored
rousing with anger in her tones
to cry for food,

Gimme something to eat—
They’re starving me—
I’m all right I won’t go
to the hospital. No, no, no

Give me something to eat
Let me take you
to the hospital, I said
and after you are well

you can do as you please.
She smiled, Yes
you do what you please first
then I can do what I please—

Oh, oh, oh! she cried
as the ambulance men lifted
her to the stretcher—
Is this what you call

making me comfortable?
By now her mind was clear—
Oh you think you’re smart
you young people,

she said, but I’ll tell you
you don’t know anything.
Then we started.
On the way

we passed a long row
of elms. She looked at them
awhile out of
the ambulance window and said,

What are all those
fuzzy-looking things out there?
Trees? Well, I’m tired
of them and rolled her head away.