Chocolate Covered Love

The original recipe for this is actually "Honey Baked Chicken", which is equally delicious and I grew up eating that, cooked by my mom. I got the recipe from her a couple years ago and my fiance and I put our own spin on it. My fiance likes to have lots of extra sauce which is what happens when you make it this way. 

The crayon artwork is courtesy of Aria, who had gotten a hold of the notebook when I wasn't looking.

I have fallen in love with this orange blossom honey. I found it at our grocery store and thought I'd try it, as opposed to the regular clover honey. I'm never going back to clover honey. This orange blossom honey has a much lighter, fruitier, floral flavor. Delicious. If any of you get the chance to try some, I highly recommend it.

Honey-Mustard Pork

- two to three pounds pork chops, boneless

- salt and pepper

- 1/3 cup butter, melted

- 1/3 cup honey

- two tablespoons mustard

- one teaspoon salt

- one teaspoon curry powder

Season pork chops with salt and pepper and brown in a hot pan on both sides. Brown in batches, setting browned pork chops on a plate as they are finished.

While the pork chops are browning combine butter, honey, mustard, salt and curry powder in a bowl and whisk together.

Once all the chops are browned, put them all back in the pan and pour the honey-mustard sauce over the top. Continue to cook until the pork chops are cooked through.

Serve with rice.

Enjoy.

Most people who know me know that I grew up in Cambodia. I lived there for seven years with my family, all of middle school and high school. We moved there for my dad's job, he became the Southeast Asia Director for World Relief - an organization he'd already been working for in Chicago. The rest of my family is still over there now, although my sister has graduated from high school and is getting ready to go on a missions trip and my brother is in high school. Makes me feel so old. He was three years old when we moved! 

Anyway, I spent those seven years eating jasmine rice basically everyday. This curry is a very common dish made in Cambodia and I adapted the recipe from a cookbook my mom gave me from a restaurant over there. The recipe in the book calls for you to make your own chili paste - but I can't get all those ingredients here in Chicago, so I used a pre-made chili paste. The paste I bought was from Thailand and they have much spicier food over there, so I had to add in extra coconut milk to balance out the spiciness  I do love spicy food though, so it wasn't a big deal to me. The flavors were the same and it made me homesick for Cambodia.

Khmer Chicken Curry

adapted from the Best of Friends (The Restaurant) cookbook

- chili paste, 4 oz.

- two cans unsweetened coconut milk

- two tablespoons fish sauce

- one pound chicken breast, cubed

- two medium potatoes, cubed

- chicken stock, if needed

- one tablespoon sugar

- one tablespoon curry powder

- one medium onion, sliced

- one cup green beans, cut in half

- salt to taste

- cilantro for garnish

Bring one can of the coconut milk to a boil in a saucepan and reduce until most of the liquid is gone - more than half reduced down. 

Add in the chili paste and cook until fragrant. Add in the fish sauce.

Mix well and add the chicken. Stir well again. Add the potatoes and the other can of coconut milk and if needed, chicken stock to cover the potatoes and chicken.

Cover and and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Add in the sugar, curry powder, onion, beans and salt and simmer for 15 more minutes.

Serve with jasmine rice or crusty french bread, or both!

You can either serve the curry to the side of the rice, or on top of it, as I did here. 

Enjoy!