Kitchen Hack

Cooking for Dudes: Lardon Breakfast Salad w/Maple-Curry Vinaigrette

Okay, dudes. You have committed to fixing your best girl breakfast. Problem is you want bacon and eggs and she wants a salad. You're cooking for her so salad it is. Still, a brother gotta eat so we're gonna get you your bacon and eggs. We're combining those two things into the breakfast version of a peanut butter cup - the best of both worlds. We're gonna have a vibrant, fresh salad with bacon and egg. We're classing it up by using pancetta. And we're topping it with a Maple Syrup (that's for you), Bacon Fat (also for you) Mild Curry (for her) Vinaigrette (it's French, so totally for her).  

This is a salad for two. If you're making it for the whole family, just double it or triple it. Takes 8-10 minutes of prep time and 8-10 minutes of cooking time. 

Not Only Can You Put Apples In A Curry Dish - You WANT To Put Apples In A Curry Dish

It's Apple season here in Minnesota. Really good apples everywhere. Also, it's impossible on an iOS device to have the word "Apple" show up without capitalizing the first letter. I'm too lazy to correct it everytime it comes up. 

We're going heavy on the curry in this post. This weekend we also did a really nice homemade applesauce. I don't even like applesauce. 

Easy Sweet & Spicy Chicken Curry (with apples)

Apples a-poppin' everywhere. This recipe started with a li'l something I found on the New York Times Cooking site. And then I screwed around with it. I first tried this recipe a couple of years ago when Jill first got sick and we had to be really careful about what she was eating. We needed calories but we needed them to be healthy calories. Over time I've played with it a bit and evolved it. 

You want a really sweet Apple. My go-to is Honeycrisp...it's sweet and it holds up well to cooking. But use whatever you like. One safety tip - stay away from anything with "delicious" in the name. These aren't that delicious and tend to turn into baby food when introduced to heat. 

First, get all your stuff together. 

Ingredients

2 tbsp peanut oil
2 tsp ground allspice
3 tablespoons butter
½ chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 sweet apple, cored and finely cubed, about 1 cup (Honeycrisp)
2 ribs celery, small dice
4-6 new potatoes, diced
2 tablespoons yellow curry powder
2 tsp red curry powder
10-12 cherry tomatoes, quartered
¾ cup chicken broth, fresh or canned
1 bay leaf
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 skinless boneless chicken breasts, about 1 1/4 pounds total
2 tablespoons finely minced cilantro or parsley